Inside Memphis Business, Feb/Mar 2018

FEB/MAR 2018 | VOLUME XII | NUMBER 3

AWARD WINNERS 1000+ EMPLOYEES

KARL SCHLEDWITZ MONOGRAM FOODS 200-1000 EMPLOYEES

KIM HEATHCOTT CLARION SECURITY

50-200 EMPLOYEES

DANIEL WEICKENAND ORION FCU

1-50 EMPLOYEES

JENNIFER KRUCHTEN TRAVELENNIUM

Supplement to Memphis magazine

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Daniel Weickenand ORION FCU

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Meet the new

w Clark.

My partners and I need a customizable, professional, and affordable office space.

Meet Clark. With its landmark stature and warm, welcoming lobby, Clark brings a fresh perspective to the East Memphis business scene. We’ve invested over $9M in top-to-bottom renovations so you (and your partners) can have a tech, design, and floorplan friendly space to create a brighter future for your company.

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Bob Nolan makes customer service his way of life.

He made consumer satisfaction the driving force of his company.

Bob needed a financial ally who could help his business grow while continuing to deliver an unparalleled experience for customers.

See Bob’s story at my.triumphbank.com

The My Triumph campaign exists to spotlight everyday people fulfilling their dreams.

These are our customers, and these are their stories of triumph. What’s your triumph?

f e a t u r e

FEBRUARY / MARCH 2018 VOLUME XII | NUMBER 3

23

COLUMNS 6

FROM THE EDITOR ••• BY JON W. SPARKS

15

8

CREATIVE COMMUNICATION ••• BY ANDREA WILEY

10 F I N A N C E & I N V E S T M E N T ••• BY DAVID S. WADDELL

1000+ EMPLOYEES

WINNER

KARL SCHLEDWITZ MONOGRAM FOODS

14 I N S I D E : I N N O V A T I O N ••• BY MICHAEL GRABER

15 I N S I D E T R A N S P O R T A T I O N ••• B Y D ENNIS LY N C H

16

DEPARTMENTS 12 T H E H O T S H E E T 16 L E A D E R S H I P

Dr. Tracy Hall Southwest Tennessee Community College ••• B Y F R A N K M U R TAU G H

32

200-1000 EMPLOYEES

WINNER

KIM HEATHCOTT CLARION SECURITY

20 C O M M U N I T Y P A R T N E R S H I P

AutoZone and First Book ••• B Y EMILY A DA M S K EPL IN GER

32 P R O F E S S I O N A L D E V E L O P M E N T

Ways to stay ahead of the game ••• BY SAMUEL X. CICCI

38 M A D E I N M E M P H I S

TriCore Builders on the rise ••• BY SAMUEL X. CICCI

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44 T H E B E S T O F T I P S H E E T 46 H U M A N R E S O U R C E S

50-200 EMPLOYEES

WINNER

DANIEL WEICKENAND ORION FCU

Exciting times in HR departments ••• BY AISLING MAKI

48 P O W E R P L A Y E R S

Commercial Real Estate 52 S M A L L B U S I N E S S C E N T R A L

52

The beauty of Gould’s ••• BY CINDY WOLFF

56 M A D E I N M E M P H I S

Annual UPTAs bring talent from far and wide ••• BY AISLING MAKI

60 T H E O F F I C E

Bill Seely at Varsity Spirit ••• BY SAMUEL X. CICCI

60

1 - 50 EMPLOYEES

WINNER

JENNIFER KRUCHTEN TRAVELENNIUM

>>>CEO PHOTOGRAPHS

BY LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

64 F R O M T H E A R C H I V E S

The modern Julius Lewis department store ••• BY VANCE LAUDERDALE

FEBRUARY / MARCH 2018 | INSIDE MEMPHIS BUSINESS.COM |

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F R O M

T H E

E D I T O R

• • •

B Y

J O N

W.

S PA R K S

• • •

B Y

J O N

W.

S PA R K S

Taking the Reins

The most effective CEOs have a vision and a practical sense of how to get there.

INSIDEMEMPHISBUSINESS.COM EDITOR

Jon W. Sparks

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Brian Groppe

MANAGING EDITOR

Frank Murtaugh

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Samuel X. Cicci

COPY EDITOR

Michael Finger

EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTORS

ADVERTISING ART DIRECTOR PRODUCTION OPERATIONS DIRECTOR GRAPHIC DESIGNERS PHOTOGRAPHY

Emily Adams Keplinger, Vance Lauderdale, Aisling Maki, Jill Johnson Piper, Jane Schneider, Anna Traverse, David S. Waddell, Andrea Wiley, Cindy Wolff Christopher Myers Margie Neal Jeremiah Matthews, Bryan Rollins Karen Pulfer Focht, Larry Kuzniewski

PUBLISHED BY CONTEMPOR ARY MEDIA , INC .

PUBLISHER

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR SPECIAL PROJECTS DIRECTOR DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Kenneth Neill Bruce VanWyngarden Molly Willmott Jeffrey A. Goldberg

DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

Anna Traverse

CONTROLLER

Ashley Haeger

DIGITAL MANAGER SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER EMAIL MARKETING MANAGER DISTRIBUTION MANAGER

Kevin Lipe Matthew Preston Britt Ervin Lynn Sparagowski

IT DIRECTOR

Joseph Carey

ACCOUNTING ASSISTANT

Celeste Dixon

RECEPTIONIST

Kalena McKinney

Inside Memphis Business is published six times a year

by Contemporary Media, Inc., P.O. Box 1738, Memphis, TN 38101 © 2018, telephone: 901-521-9000.

For subscription information, call 901-575-9470. All rights reserved.

Periodicals postage paid at Memphis, TN. Postmaster: send address changes to Inside Memphis Business, P.O. Box 1738, Memphis, TN 38101. Opinions and perspectives expressed in the magazine are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of the ownership or management.

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Inside Memphis Business is perennially proud of its CEO of the Year awards. It’s a chance to highlight some of the best aspects of leaders, of businesses, of this city. This year’s winners are plenty different in what their companies offer, how they got started, and how they approach the job. Just as important is what they have in common.

Looking at the profiles, you’ll see what our CEOs pay particular attention to, maybe the most significant being how they treat their people.

Look at Karl Schledwitz of Monogram Foods Solutions describing his firm’s corporate culture: “Surrounding yourself with like-minded people is a big part of it. They have a positive energy, embrace diversity, enjoy giving back, and enjoy the entrepreneurial spirit.”

Kim Heathcott at Clarion Security operates on the premise that employees are every bit as important as the clients and she respects them accordingly.

For Daniel Weickenand of Orion FCU, turning around a financial institution meant, among other things, revitalizing employees by offering new opportunities and community involvement.

And Travelennium’s Jennifer Kruchten learned from her father to take care of people, especially employees, and the tight-knit team at the travel agency is testament to that.

Elsewhere in this issue, you’ll find some Memphis enterprises that are making their mark. One is Gould’s, the family owned business that’s been bringing beauty and relaxation to Memphians for 86 years. Much newer is TriCore Builders, barely two years old but already breaking records. Then there are the annual UPTAs, which you may never have heard

of, but for 23 years have been bringing together actors and production companies from around the country for an intensive audition process at Playhouse on the Square.

When it comes to leadership, you’ll meet Dr. Tracy Hall, president of Southwest Tennessee Community College, who has a vision of bringing students, faculty, and community together to provide a strong effort to meet the region’s critical employment needs.

Elsewhere, we take a look at human resources departments, which more and more are facing challenges with changing employment laws and social mandates.

For workers who want to step up their game, we have a professional development listing of places that offer a variety of courses and degrees that will enhance a resume.

Meanwhile, get an inside look at issues of innovation with Michael Graber and of local transportation with Dennis Lynch.

There’s more in this issue of Inside Memphis Business and we’re glad you’re here to read about our town’s movers and shakers.

Dig Deep for Memphis A 2017 survey conducted by The Chronicle of Philanthropy ranked Memphis first in that magazine’s list of per-capita charitable contributions for America’s 50 most-populous metro areas. Memphisarea residents and businesses give more than $700 million to charity annually.

Because of this spirit, Inside Memphis Business in 2015 started working together with local companies to highlight the good work done in our community.

This is our “Dig Deep for Memphis” partnership program. Over the past few

years, we’ve matched every advertising full page purchased by our partners with a donated page for the charitable organization of their choice.

We are pleased with the “Dig Deep” program and look to expand it. For further information, contact neill@ contemporary-media.com.

Join me in thanking our program partners — Triumph, FedEx, and Northwestern Mutual — for their support of philanthropy in the Mid-South, and their support for Inside Memphis Business in 2018. — Kenneth Neill

INSIDE MEMPHIS BUSINESS.COM | FEBRUARY / MARCH 2018

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2016

project location size project type

Lansky’s Corporate Office Memphis, TN 4,417 sf Office - Renovation

100 Memphis, Peabody Place, Memphis, TN 38103 ••901.260.7370 • www.belzdesignbuild.com 100 Peabody Place, TN 38103 • 901.260.7370 www.belzconstruction.com

©Jeffrey Jacobs Photography

CREATI V E COMMUNICATION

• • •

B Y

A N D R E A

W I L E Y

LinkedIn: More than a job tool You’ll be left out if you aren’t LinkedIn. At minimum, it is a great tool if you are looking for a job or for good candidates for an open position you are trying to fill, but it is also an effective communications channel for content marketing. Whether you are promoting yourself as a thought leader or your company as the solution, LinkedIn content marketing can help you stay top of mind with your customers.

TV Shows • Columns • Radio Show • Books • Podcast

According to Statista.com, more than posts, guides, white papers, and case studies 467 million business professionals have a are all great ways to promote your thought LinkedIn profile and 40 percent access their leadership and position you or your compaaccounts daily via one of the four devices ny as a solution to a problem. Share relevant they own. From smartphones and tablets content from a third party like articles that to streaming sticks and watches, Globalyou are featured, mentioned or quoted in, as WebIndex reports that digital consumers well as other industry news. own an average of 3.64 devices. They are usYou can write your own articles in LinkedIn and share ing those devices to research you and/or your them with your concompany, so you need nect ion s d i rect ly. to be there if you want Keep them 500 to 700 them to find you. But words and support them w ith strong you need to do more than just be there. You photos or infographneed to be relevant. ics. Titles are important and should not be To b e releva nt you need a strategy. overlooked. It is the Determine what you title that makes somewant to accomplish one click on your post with your LinkedIn or not. They should THE KEY TO EFFECTIVE CONTENT content marketing by be intriguing but not setting specific, quanmisleading as to what MARKETING IS TO FEED YOUR AUDItifiable goals. Do you the article is about.

ENCE AS WELL AS ATTRACT THEM. want to grow your Click-bait titles are a community or convert guaranteed opt-out. your current connections to customers? If You can also compile the work of others’ you don’t know where you want to go, it is content, with credit, to share different perimpossible to know when you get there. spectives. If you found it interesting, chancThe key to effective content marketing es are your customers will too.

In addition to posting your content, share is to feed your audience as well as attract them. Make it pay off to engage with your it directly with relevant connections to be content, whether by offering something of sure they see it, rather than leaving it up to value or acknowledging them with interacchance. Mention and tag them in posts and/ tion. Share useful information that makes or send them a link of your content in a direct you a resource to your customers. In original message. If it is meaningful to them, they content, demonstrate your thought process will share it too, which will increase your to show your level of expertise and what you visibility. have to offer.

Content marketing on LinkedIn can be an Be careful not to over publish and not effective sales tool if you strategically work it to push out too much sales content. That from the start, with specific goals, targeting could push them away instead of pull them specific connections with relevant informain. Plan out your editorial calendar by week, tion that positions you and/or your company as an industry expert. month, or year, and break it in to thirds — a third of the content should be interesting Andrea Wiley is director of account management information from other sources, a third at DCA Creative Communications Consulting, should be a celebration of your community and is an adjunct professor teaching advertisor industry, and another third should be ing at the University of Memphis. She was the original content.

2015-2016 president of the American Advertising If you are already creating valuable content Federation, Memphis Chapter, and can be reached in the form of blog posts, email, or columns, at awiley@dcamemphis.com. it can be repurposed for LinkedIn. “How to”

8 | INSIDE MEMPHIS BUSINESS.COM | FEBRUARY / MARCH 2018

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$2.3 BILLION

ADDED TO TENNESSEE’S ECONOMY

$84.3 MILLION

IN GRANT EXPENDITURES

3097

TOTAL STUDENTS

ENROLLED

100+

CLINICAL AND EDUCATIONAL

SITES ACROSS TENNESSEE

Patient Care | Professional Education Research

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HEALTH CARE COLLEGES

Dentistry | Graduate Health Sciences Health Professions | Medicine Nursing | Pharmacy

4

FULL CLINICAL CAMPUSES Memphis | Chattanooga Knoxville | Nashville

1

MISSION:

TRANSFORM HEALTH CARE Education | Clinical Care Public Service | Research

uthsc.edu

FI NA NCE & I N V ESTMENT

••• BY DAVID S. WADDELL

The Price of Leadership Each day when global markets open, participants negotiate the price of ownership for more than 100,000 listed companies. Analysts, investment bankers, money managers, and individual investors compulsively scour financials, back-test charts, scrutinize earnings trajectories, and build algorithms to decide whether to purchase or pass on the prevailing price. My 11-year-old daughter, Saylor, mentioned one day that to do my job I must

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be very good at math. I promptly explained Placing a high value on leadership reto her the difference between quantitative quires a system for assessment. In The value creators and qualitative value creLeadership Capital Index, University of ators. I explained that while the numbers Michigan business school professor Dave play an important role, businesses rely on Ulrich lays out a framework to evaluate, people and that if the people don’t perform, score, and rank the quality of individuthe numbers don’t perform. “While the al and organizational leadership within numbers may tell you the past, Saylor, the companies. Ulrich argues that leadership ratings should command as much people tell you the future. Take the case of Amazon. Amazon has a market capitalizaanalytical energy as credit ratings, urging tion of $565 billion while earning just over organizations like Moody’s and Standard $2 billion, meaning people are willing to and Poor’s to begin assessing leadership pay $280 for something quality. According to earning only $1. Want Ulrich, A A A corporate leaders master to know why?” Sadly, IN AN AGE THAT DEMANDS ORGASaylor had already refive key proficiencies: NIZATIONAL RESILIENCE, INNOturned to Snapchat by personal prof iciency that point — but I will VATION, FLEXIBILITY, AND SPEED, (good character and happily tell you! health), strategic proHIGH PERFORMANCE ENTERPRISES f iciency (heightened In 2011, a group of conREQUIRE HIGH QUALITY LEADERS. sense of direction), sultants at Deloitte set execution prof icienout to answer a simple question, “How much is effective leadership cy (gets things done), people proficienworth?” For an answer they surveyed 445 incy (builds and directs high performing vestment bankers, private equity investors, teams), and brand proficiency (meet or hedge fund executives, and portfolio managexceed client expectations). Organizations ers worldwide. Surprisingly, in the determiwith high quality leadership have healthy nation of value, these financial pros weighed cultures, role accountability, rising talent, leadership effectiveness more heavily than effective information distribution, and a they weighed earnings forecasts or finannimbleness that fosters innovation and cial ratios. In fact, they even quantified the resilience. Apply this framework to the premium they would pay for top-tier leadmost successful companies you know, and ership versus the discount they would apyou will likely find a very talented leader. ply for bottom-tier leadership. On average, Berkshire Hathaway = Warren Buffett, companies with top-tier leadership received Alibaba = Jack Ma, FedEx = Fred Smith, a 16 percent valuation premium while those Tori Burch = Tori Burch. You get the idea. with bottom-tier leadership received valuaIn an age that demands organizational retion discounts of 20 percent. Furthermore, silience, innovation, flexibility, and speed, certain company profiles commanded larghigh performance enterprises require high er leadership valuation adjustments. Small quality leaders. Consequently, accurate valcompanies rely more heavily on leadership ue appraisals must include comprehensive strength where key decisions have larger leadership appraisals. Can you put a price on implications. Companies that traffic in comleadership? According to analysts you can, modities also rely more heavily on leadership and the price is high — and rising. strength where operational and financial exDavid S. Waddell is CEO of Waddell and Associecution hold outsized influence. Often larger ates. He has appeared in The Wall Street companies, or those with strong industry Journal, Forbes, Business Week, and tailwinds, can mask leadership inadequacies. other local, national, and global resources.

But ultimately, over time poor leadership is Visit waddellandassociates.com revealed. When it comes to leadership, it’s for more. better to be good than lucky.

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The HOT Sheet 12 |

Advancement Taylor Oyaas and Olivia Garber joined Shea Moskovitz & McGhee as associate attorneys.

Jennifer Chiusano joined Saint Francis Hospital-Memphis as chief nursing officer.

S. Keenan Carter joined Butler Snow in its commercial litigation group.

Financial Federal Bank hired Alex Neale as senior vice president of private banking.

Eclectic Eye promoted Rebecca Allen to team lead.

Libby King was promoted to sales director at retirement community Trezevant.

The University of Tennessee Health Science Center named David C. Mills, Sr., as director of government relations.

Sara Studdard joined Explore Bike Share as community engagement & marketing director.

HR services company Adams Keegan hired Kelsey Foster as part of its expansion into the Nashville market.

Lauren Goddard (director of research) and Mary Harrell (marketing) joined the Memphis office of Avison Young, a commercial real estate agency.

Laura Fenton joined Cushman & Wakefield Commercial Advisors as director of marketing research.

Strategic Financial Partners hired Jessica Allen as a financial services representative.

Meghan Cox joined Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs, LLP, as a member of the firm’s litigation and dispute resolution team.

Elizabeth Sharpe was named as the new president and CEO of Healthnet Federal Credit Union.

Stites & Harbison, PLLC was included in 2018’s “Best Law Firms” by U.S. News & World Report and Best Lawyers.

Appointment

Pinnacle Financial Partners was named as a Best Brands Award winner by global research agency Greenwich Associates.

Shea Moskovitz & McGhee attorney Leigh-Taylor White was named a fellow by the Memphis Bar Association.

Governor Bill Haslam appointed Randall D. Noel as chair of the Governor’s Council for Judicial Appointments in Tennessee.

Beth Wilson, PR manager at inferno, was named 2017 PR Executive of the Year at the PRSA VOX awards.

Agape Child & Family Services named Alma Eldridge and Sherica Hymes to its board of directors.

Seven lawyers from Glassman, Wyatt, Tuttle & Cox, PLLC, were recognized in the 2017 Mid-South Super Lawyers listings: Richard Glassman, Todd Murrah, Ed Wallis, Kyle Cannon, Lewis Lyons, Ronna Kinsella, and Jonathan Stokes.

The Humane Society of Memphis & Shelby County named Ted Davis as its 2018 president of the board of directors.

UTHSC’s Catherine Womack, MD, received a Laureate Award from the American College of Physicians.

The Seam named five new members to its board of directors: Kevin Brinkley, Jay Hardwick, Tommy Hayden, Hank Reichle, and Krista Rickman.

Inked

Ronna Kinsella, an attorney at Glassman, Wyatt, Tuttle & Cox, PLLC has been named as the membership chair for the Defense Research Institute’s Commercial Litigation Committee’s Pretrial Practice & Procedure Special Litigation Group.

Awards

U.S. News - Best Lawyers named Fisher Phillips one of the 2018 Best Law Firms for employment and labor law practices and labor and employment litigation practice. David Jones (partner), Jay Kiesewetter (senior counsel), and Jeff Weintraub (managing partner) were selected for the 2017 Mid-South Super Lawyers; attorneys Courtney Leyes and Gabriel McGaha were included in Rising Stars.

Pinnacle Financial Partners opened a new Memphis office in the Ridgeway Center at 949 S. Shady Grove Road.

IMC Companies joined the Blockchain in Trucking Alliance.

University of Tennessee Health Science Center partnered with Memphis Bioworks Foundation and TriMetis Life Sciences to focus on researching biosciences.

Memphis-based company Hollywood Feed continued its national expansion with a first store in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

IMC Companies, a Memphis-based national network of intermodal logistics businesses, acquired H&M Terminal Transport.

Levy Dermatology opened a second, 3,000-square-foot location in Collierville.

Alliance for Nonprofit Excellence rebranded to Momentum Nonprofit Partners.

INSIDE MEMPHIS BUSINESS.COM | FEBRUARY / MARCH 2018

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Watkins Uiberall, PLLC Certified Public Accountants Memphis • Tupelo 901.761.2720 • 662.269.4014 www.wucpas.com

Providing quality accounting and business consulting since 1971.

INNOVATION IS A REPEATABLE PROCESS OF GENERATING NEW VALUE FOR AN ORGANIZATION. THIS VALUE IS ROOTED IN PRAGMATISM, SOLVING UNMET NEEDS FOR A SPECIFIC AUDIENCE.

Bringing Empathy to Innovation • • • BY

M I C H A E L

G R A B E R

Innovation is one of those tricky words that may mean different things to different people. Like other words that are ripe for misunderstanding — “creativity� and “strategy� come to mind — innovation requires a refining conversation to demystify it.

The first task is to name what is not innovation. Innovation is not disorganized brainstorming. Innovation is not an online submission form of new ideas. Innovation is not only technology and IT. Innovation is not the job of everyone at an organization. Innovation is not an over-caffeinated synapse of a CEO with a stealthy skunk works team. Innovation is not a room, center, or place.

So, what is it? Innovation is a repeatable process of generating new value for an organization.

This value is rooted in pragmatism, solving unmet needs for a specific audience. The trick is 14 |

to really deeply understand the people for whom you are solving problems. You can achieve this aim by applying empathy, by getting to know them very well.

Empathy generates many needs that are not met by the many products that miss the mark and whose remainders fill aftermarket stores and landfills.

Empathy works for many different audiences. Here are several examples from our portfolio: For a manufacturing business-to-business company: Instead of spending $10 million-plus and several years

project (specifically in learning the needs and testing the prototypes) we came up with an easy-to-launch program that increased loyalty, greatly increasing product penetration.

Compare the old way of planning to manufacture and the uncertain return versus the market-based and inexpensive way of finding a meaningful solution.

In a few weeks, rather than years, we had a tested prototype.

A learning pilot took a quarter, then a quick, assured launch and fairly quick top-line growth.

For a leading non-proďŹ t: Empathy in this case meant sweating, running the fundraising runs, walking the walks, and hanging out with all of the donors who participate in national fitness events. Before more events were added at a great expense hoping to make a return, we got to know these donors so well, which led to a valuable insight.

This insight was that there was a lot of money and brand loyalty left on the table. In fact, most participants were treated as just runners or walkers or another single event participant in the database and seen by the default system as annual transactional donors and single event-based fundraisers.

Empathic research unveiled the

truth. A large group of donors was ready to engage much more deeply and make the leap from transactional givers to around-the-year fundraisers and brand ambassadors.

For a leading consumer brand in the allergy space: This particular brand was in a predicament, a vexing set of problems without a solution, when we starting working with them.

They had started the category, were the undisputed branded leader of it for 50 years, but now a private label was the leader in the space. Any move they made was quickly ripped off by the fast-following private-label brands.

The client had 50 years of market research — and its brand position was treated as a matter of orthodoxy based on this history.

Working directly with allergy sufferers we learned that there were indeed new ways to meet unsolved needs; however, the brand had to learn to flex and get over itself.

In this case, the brand had been using survey data to meet its unconscious confirmation bias.

Once we went into the homes, purses, and medicine cabinets of allergy suffers, we saw the obvious flaw in the whole system. People lie on surveys, answering from the point of view of their idealized self instead of being honest. Doing in-home interviews unlocked the key to growth in this case.

As a consultancy with more than a 10-year tenure, we have worked in many industries and with all types of clients: consumer goods, durable goods, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, technology, nonprofits, financial services, even municipalities.

Here is what we have learned: Starting innovation with empathy will add a dimension of reality to any brand, empowering them to create real solutions for real people, helping them accomplish the task at hand. All it takes is a little time, a small budget, and a willingness to leave the building and engage people.

Michael Graber is the managing partner of the Southern Growth Studio, an insight, innovation, and growth firm, and the author of Going Electric. Learn more at southerngrowthstudio.com

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to create a new tankless water heater that may not meet the real needs of plumbers and their customers (both residential and commercial), we spent several weeks going on service calls with plumbers, discerning their unmet needs, and then created a range of concepts for them that included new products and services.

In the end, by applying empathy in key phases in the

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Over the last 25 years, MATA has suffered from a collection of forces that have weakened it by a thousand small cuts. First, our geography has spread, decreasing the population and employment density. This has increased costs and decreased ridership at the same time. Then, because ridership was down, the Memphis City Council reduced its funding support. As a result,

THE SIERRA CLUB’S MISSION RECOGNIZES THE IMPORTANCE OF THE “BUILT ENVIRONMENT” WITH TRANSPORTATION AS ONE KEY ELEMENT.

Hitching a Ride on Better Transit • • • B Y

D E N N I S

LY N C H

As transportation chair for the Sierra Club’s Tennessee Chapter, I’m always looking at transit and all transportation modes in Memphis and around the state.

Several recent studies have shown that Memphis needs better transit. These studies indicate that the Memphis Area Transit Authority needs to become more attractive to riders, employers, and millennials by establishing a dedicated funding source, increasing overall funding, and moving toward a plan to allow increased ridership.

The Sierra Club’s mission recognizes the importance of the “built environment” with transportation as one key element. Thus, we focus significant efforts over many years for public services that meet the needs of the people, while we also push for clean air, clean water, green transportation for all, and

reduction of greenhouse gases – transportation being responsible for a third of greenhouse gases in the country, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

In Memphis as well as in other cities, some residents need better transit to get to work or to the grocery store or doctor. Some businesses need it so employees can get to work. Riders want choices of how to get around, or so that their family can get along with one fewer car. Some want it so that Memphis can be more attractive to businesses that are looking for a place to relocate, or to open a new location for their business. Some say Memphis needs it because it’s an important element of a healthy, livable city.

MATA had to cut back routes or decrease their frequency, which only served to reduce ridership even further.

It was the genesis of a death spiral. Fortunately, a collection of forward-looking politicians, transit professionals, business leaders, and community activists have blocked further decline for the moment, and there is considerable discussion of not only how to fix it, but how to make it into a transit system that Memphis deserves.

Some ideas in public and private discussions include a guaranteed funding base that is not subject to City Council votes; greater density in the city and less moving out to the suburbs like Collierville and Arlington; and more frequent buses on key routes. Overall there should also be cleaner buses, a safer environment, and better customer service.

Those recent reports addressing Memphis transit have come up with essential considerations. First is the growing recognition that more funding is needed. Innovate Memphis’ “Transit Funding White Paper” (innovatememphis. com/transportation-and-mobility) recommended in its transit vision and goals that, “the Memphis area invests in quality public transit as its highest transportation priority (and) increases transit service with

$30 million dedicated annual local public funding [operating plus capital expense].” This report was also sponsored by the Greater Memphis Chamber.

Tom Jones of SmartCity Memphis published an insightful article in February 2017, titled “Memphis Deserves Great Transit” (smartcitymemphis.com/2017/02/ memphis-deserves-great-transit). In it, he repeats the call for better transit, emphasizes the significance of the sprawl problem, and echoes the importance of increased funding for MATA. The Memphis 3.0 comprehensive plan, currently under way, includes “Connectivity” as one of its key pillars. Innovate Memphis, working with Jarrett Walker + Associates, is leading the way with the “Memphis 3.0 Transit Vision” (memphis3point0.com/transit), which seems likely to become the basis for Memphis’ transit priorities for the next 5 to 10 years.

The preliminary “Conceptual Alternatives Report” is available at that link and is crucial to understanding the approaches to improving transit in Memphis.

Suzanne Carlson, transportation and mobility project manager at Innovate Memphis, describes four proposed transit networks that “show the trade-offs between broad coverage across the city, even if the bus doesn’t come very often, or higher frequency on key routes that will increase ridership and access more jobs. We also designed networks with more money, to increase service, and are asking the public and decision makers which network is right for Memphis.” Preliminary survey results show that people have some preference for ridership concepts.

The planning under way, including the public input process, will bring sound proposals to our elected officials. We look forward to decisive action as Memphis needs better transit to succeed in the twenty-first century. One additional positive note: MATA expects to evolve to electric buses over the next 5 to 10 years, with higher reliability, reduced operating costs, and less air pollution. • Dennis Lynch is transportation chair for the Sierra Club’s Tennessee Chapter.

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Tracy Hall

A president’s passion for urban communities.

Dr. Tracy Hall

• • •

B Y

F R A N K

M U R TA U G H

Ask Dr. Tracy Hall about her first impression of Memphis upon moving to the city in 2015 and the president of Southwest Tennessee Community College (STCC) smiles and describes an actual physical impression. “I’m more of a hugger,” she says. “Memphians like to hug.” Along with cultivating the warmest of greetings, Hall has improved her small-talk skills, a prerequisite for a healthy meeting in these parts, no matter how grand the agenda. Among her standby topics: “How was your weekend? Grandkids okay? Holiday plans? It’s still the South. And that’s a good thing, because it forces me to slow down.”

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Hall grew up in St. Louis, an only child for a decade until her sister, Kelly, arrived. Her mother — still a teenager when Tracy was born — worked for the U.S. Postal Service for more than 30 years to keep her family comfortable. “We didn’t fall into some of the statistics you hear about children born to teen mothers. I used to tell people we were middle class,” says Hall with a smile. “[My mother] says, ‘You may have been middle class. I was poor.’”

Hall attended McCluer High School, where she played basketball for the Comets, was homecoming queen as a senior, and voted “most popular” by the class of 1985. She grew into a voracious reader of both fiction — Judy Blume and Toni Morrison were favorites — and the newspaper, where she found a unique favorite section, at least for a teenager. “My family thought it was strange that I focused on obituaries,” says Hall. “But I was fascinated — still am — by a person’s life. That’s a story. You see what a person managed to accomplish. I still read obituaries.”

Hall became a first-generation college student when she enrolled at Southeast Missouri State for the 1985-86 academic year, but the most significant impact of her freshman year was a senior she met: Anthony “Butch” Hall, a star for the Indians’ basketball team. They began dating during the spring semester, were married nine months later, and recently celebrated their 31st anniversary. (The Halls have three children, ages 26, 22, and 15, the youngest a student at Collierville High School, where Anthony coaches the girls’ basketball team.) When her new husband took a job in St. Louis upon graduating, Hall found herself back in her hometown and graduated with a degree in speech and mass communications from the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

During graduate school at Wichita State (Anthony had joined the Air Force and was stationed in Kansas), a faculty member asked her — for the first time — if she’d be interested in teaching. “I was teaching students barely younger than me,” notes Hall. “Teaching interpersonal communications. I enjoyed it.

Completed my master’s program and stayed on as an adjunct [professor].” When, in 1993, a full-time position opened at St. Louis Community College-Meramec, Hall returned again to the Gateway City.

The Halls spent time in Atlanta in the late Nineties (Anthony coached basketball at the University of West Georgia) before settling in Kansas City for more than a decade, where Hall became an associate dean at Metropolitan Community College-Penn Valley. During this period, Hall earned her Ph.D. (in leadership and policy analysis) from the University of Missouri. Then in 2011, Hall’s academic journey led, for a third time, to St. Louis, where she served four years as vice president of academic affairs at St. Louis Community

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L E A D E R S H I P

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College-Forest Park before getting the call from STCC. “I didn’t have a timeline [for becoming a college president], but I wanted to make sure I was ready for the role,” says Hall. She prevailed in a search that included more than 60 candidates for leadership of the five-campus school that now has more than 9,000 students and 100 faculty members. “I was looking for an urban campus, where there are challenges in the community,” she says. “But a community that wants to grow. It could be an impoverished community. That’s where I

“WE DON’T TEACH WHAT WE WANT TO TEACH. WE TEACH WHAT BUSINESSES AND INDUSTRIES NEED US TO TEACH.” wanted to be. A recruiter showed me positions at Southwest and Chattanooga State. I told her: Southwest. I didn’t want to just be a president; the title is not important to me.

Southwest was perfect.”

When reflecting on the leadership qualities that landed her the presidency at STCC, Hall describes herself as results-oriented, a “people person,” and someone passionate about urban communities. “I want to get things done,” she emphasizes. “And making sure people have a voice at the table. They may not be able to physically be there, but they need a representative. When making decisions that impact people, you have to consider those people. If you haven’t walked in their shoes, how can you make those decisions?”

Hall has a distinctive view of a community college’s mission, one that seems inherent, but only when actually spelled out by the school’s president: “We don’t teach what we want to teach. We teach what businesses and industries need us to teach.” Socioeconomics shift, as does technology. Hall now presides over an institution tasked with providing a critical foundation for men and women hoping to find not merely a job, but a career.

“I’m focusing on professional development for faculty,” says Hall, “to make sure they keep the connection to business and industry. We’re public servants. We have to be good stewards of taxpayer money. We have to deliver.”

Hall prides herself on interacting with students. She’s developed a rivalry on the PingPong table with a particular student, a matchup sure to draw attention in the Macon Cove student center. She also hosts “Pizza With the President” each semester, a gathering of students on each campus — linked by a video feed — where students can ask questions of their president, directly and without screening. “The best way to get students to attend was to offer food,” she says with a smile. “They fire away. It’s about them. Student government organizes it. We get some doozies, but

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we answer them honestly. They’re adults. I don’t sugarcoat anything.”

STCC’s student-veteran organization pleaded with Hall for its own facility, but had chosen a building that would all but isolate it from the rest of the student body. “They’re very vocal, and it got a little heated,” says Hall. “If you’re in a leadership position and you can’t handle controversy or conflict, then you don’t need to be in that position. If you’re upset about something, I’d rather you share it.” Hall agreed that the group needed a place to gather, but found a space more in the regular mix of student life. “Our role is student development,” emphasizes Hall. “If you leave here as you came, we’ve failed you. Our job is to prepare you to navigate the world.”

“YOU HAVE TO DO WHAT’S RIGHT FOR YOUR CONSTITUENCY AND COMMUNITY. THAT MAY NOT ALWAYS BE POPULAR.”

PHOTOGRAPH BY LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

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In leading her faculty — those with the precious task of educating — Hall emphasizes academic freedom. “Teaching what industry needs is a given,” says Hall. “But how you teach it . . . I respect academic freedom.

I’d never insist on a certain textbook, or teaching a concept with a certain speech. But the concept must be taught. Nonnegotiable.” That nod from her high school class is the last time Tracy Hall cared about being popular. “You have to do what’s right for your constituency and your community,” she says. “That may not always be popular.”

Memphis has grown on Hall in a short span of time, and she’s confident young leaders will find the same calling she did in the summer of 2015. “There’s a spirit of collaboration I’ve felt in Memphis,” she says. “People are looking to get things done in an environment where people want things to happen. That’s critical. I’ve been places where there’s a need, but not that sense of urgency among other leaders. There may be a sense of denial. Memphis seems to get it. There are a lot of great things going on, but we can be better.”

C O M M U N I T Y

P A R T N E R S H I P S

AutoZone and First Book Partnership aims to boost literacy.

• • •

B Y

E M I LY

A D A M S

K E P L I N G E R

Memphis-based AutoZone, founded in 1979, is the leading retailer and a top distributor of automotive replacement parts and accessories in the United States. Its attention to customer service is one factor that keeps it competitive, and that same dedication drives the company’s interest in helping give back to the community. A prime example is AutoZone’s three-year-old partnership with First Book.

“First Book is a national non-profit organization founded in 1992 with the belief that a child’s education is their way out of poverty,” says David Brown, First Book Mid-South chairman.

“It is the largest and fastest-growing network of educators in the United States exclusively serving kids in need.”

Brown says that First Book volunteers raise money and invite

Kristen Wright

Andrea Harano

ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OF THE PROCEEDS FROM THE “LITERACY IS KEY” EVENT GOES TO MID-SOUTH LITERARY ORGANIZATIONS.

David Brown

LAST YEAR THE NATIONAL FIRST BOOK ORGANIZATION CELEBRATED THE MILESTONE OF GIVING AWAY THEIR 100 MILLIONTH BOOK.

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organizations that work with kids to apply for those funds.

“We work with publishers to get new, deeply discounted books for the selected recipients,” says Brown. “The books go to children in need through classrooms, after-school and summer or early childhood programs, shelters and

AUTOZONE “IS PASSIONATE ABOUT SUPPORTING CAUSES FOCUSED AROUND EDUCATION, YOUTH DEVELOPMENT AND COMMUNITY ADVANCEMENT IN THE GREATER MEMPHIS AREA. health clinics, libraries, community programs, military support programs, and other settings.”

Brown says that last year the national First Book organization celebrated the milestone of giving away their 100 millionth book. In the past three years, the support from AutoZone has resulted in at least 4,000 new books being given to children in the Mid-South.

AutoZone collaborates with First Book by providing annual

grant support for the Literacy is Key: A Book and Author Affair Luncheon, a philanthropic endeavor of the Memphis Alumnae Association of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority.

“Literacy is Key is a book and author event, with a luncheon and presentations by three nationally acclaimed authors,” says Andrea Harano, Literacy is Key 2018 Chairman. “We raise money for First Book and other local literary, non-profit organizations through sponsorships, table sales, individual ticket sales, and donations. A percentage of the authors’ book sales from Novel, as well as proceeds from our Prize Winning Paperback sales and donations for the floral arrangements, add to the funds we raise. One hundred percent of the proceeds goes to Mid-South literary organizations. The majority (80 percent) goes to First Book Mid-South, and the remaining amount goes to the Memphis Library Foundation, Friends of First Regional Library, Germantown Community Library, Collierville Community Library, and Collierville Literacy Council.

Last year’s event garnered over $25,000.”

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Literacy is Key event

Kristen Wright is senior vice president, general counsel and secretary, customer satisfaction at AutoZone. She says the company “is passionate about supporting causes focused around education, youth development and community advancement in the Greater Memphis area. First Book is a terrific organization that helps us address all three of those priorities by reaching the city’s youngest new readers.”

Wright says the company is enthusiastic about Literacy is Key. “Not only does this event bring outstanding authors to Memphis and promote literacy, but it also inspires Memphians to pursue their dreams of writing.”

The eighth annual Literacy is Key event is February 1 at the Holiday Inn at the University of Memphis.

It begins at 10 a.m. with the sale of Prize Winning Paperbacks (previously owned paperbacks donated by members of the Kappa Kappa Gamma Alumnae Association, as well as retired books from local libraries).

The luncheon and authors’ presentations will begin at 11 a.m. Novel Bookstore will provide books from the three visiting authors, available for purchase and signing following the luncheon and presentations.

For more information about the 2018 Literacy is Key event, visit memphis.kappa. org/literacy-is-key-book-andauthor-event

PHOTOGRAPH BY SAM74100 / DREAMSTIME

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On behalf of eBiz Solutions, I would like to congratulate the winners of IMB’s 2018 CEO of the Year Awards.

As a first-time sponsor, we are truly honored and grateful to be part of such a prestigious event that echoes the talents, values, and standards Memphis leadership embodies, and that eBiz Solutions trusts and celebrates. eBiz Solutions is one of the top innovative digital technology companies in the county. We partner with businesses of all sizes to help them navigate this new era of a digitally augmented world. This requires strong, innovative leaders who understand the impact of continuous technology changes and how to adopt them and stay competitive. You have proven to be the business leaders Memphis needs to prosper in this digital age.

This year, eBiz Solutions celebrates those who have exemplified the individual character and leadership it takes to ultimately improve their overall business and the Memphis community.

Congratulations, honorees, and thank you for your contributions!

Sincerely,

Sridhar Sunkara CEO eBiz Solutions

Consulting

.

Innovation

.

Technology

.

Digital Marketing

eBiz Solutions, LLC, 1255 Lynnfield Road, Suite 226, Memphis, TN 38119 | 901-492-1389 | info@thinkebiz.net | www.thinkebiz.net

1000+ EMPLOYEES

WINNER

KARL SCHLEDWITZ MONOGRAM FOODS

200-1000 EMPLOYEES

Beware of risky businesses.

You can end up taking unwanted roller coaster rides that leave you gasping for air (and capital).

WINNER

KIM HEATHCOTT CLARION SECURITY

On the other hand, a savvy CEO can assess the risk and see beyond it, whether starting with a new idea or flipping an old one into a successful enterprise.

The four leaders honored in the following pages are exactly those kinds of leaders. One bought a couple of brands from Sara Lee Corporation and parlayed that transaction into a business that continues to expand. Another started a security

50-200 EMPLOYEES

WINNER

DANIEL WEICKENAND ORION FCU

company from scratch and went from zero to $10 million in less than a decade. Yet another took a wheezing financial institution and made it an example of success. And another took a travel agency and showed how it could not only survive but thrive even as similar businesses have been laid low by the internet.

Meet these exemplars of Memphis enterprise who have succeeded

1 - 50 EMPLOYEES

WINNER

JENNIFER KRUCHTEN TRAVELENNIUM

with risky businesses. >>>CEO PHOTOGRAPHS

BY LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

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1000+ EMPLOYEES

KARL SCHLEDWITZ MONOGRAM FOODS

Embracing positive energy.

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> > > BY JON W. SPARKS

Karl Schledwitz loves numbers. For example: if you put every King Cotton bacon strip sold in 2015 end to end in a straight line, it would reach from Memphis to Acapulco – almost 1,400 miles. And here are some more digits to consider: “We are 13 years old, and we have averaged 40 percent compounded annual growth rate,” he says. “We have a plan over the next five years to continue with a similar growth trajectory. I’m also proud that over the last 13 years we’ve had a 42 percent compounded growth of our EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) or cash flow, however you want to refer to it. So, it’s not just top-line growth, it’s been bottom-line growth as well.”

The chairman and CEO of Monogram Foods was honored six years ago when this publication was named MBQ. He’d done impressive things with Monogram and now he gets the nod again because the company has gone even further. The company’s pro forma sales for 2017 are expected to exceed $700 million with 2,800 employees in seven states, and Schledwitz sees the $1 billion mark in the not too distant future.

But he’s glad to put it in less fiscal terms: “It’s a fun, challenging, and rewarding ride with more to come.”

To pull off that kind of impressive growth rate requires clear thinking and some agile business strategy. Schledwitz says it goes back to 2004 when he and his partner Wes Jackson purchased King Cotton and Circle B brand meats from Sara Lee Corporation.

Its processed products include beef jerky, sausage, hot dogs, and pre-cooked bacon.

“We were committed then to create a good place to work and a company that did good things,” he says. “We have never backed off of that. Our biggest challenge, the larger we get, is maintaining the culture that we have. That is what drives us and allows us to continue enjoying the success that we have. If we ever lose sight of that I don’t think it’ll bode well for the company.”

And what is that culture?

“Like everything else, it’s evolved,” he says. “But we have behaviors that we value, and we preach and teach here in the company. Giving back to the community where we live and work is one of those. People enjoy working for companies that give back, and people feel good about it.

We not only give a lot of money to charities, but we give a lot of our time and product to children’s charities everywhere we are.”

Monogram has significant involvement in charitable causes, particularly its annual Monogram Loves Kids gala in Memphis the last Thursday in October. “Last year we netted more than $500,000,” Schledwitz says. “It was done with all Monogram volunteers, so more than 92 percent of every dollar we raised will go back to a children’s charity. We’re proud of that.”

Every spring, the company has its Penny Hardaway essay contest for eleventh graders.

“People enjoy working for companies that give back.”

A hundred are chosen to go to a basketball game with Penny and the top 10 get $1,000 scholarships to post-secondary education.

There is also a strong focus on hiring the right kind of employee. “Embracing positive energy is one of the behaviors we value,” Schledwitz says. “We try to bring people into the Monogram family that share similar values and have positive attitudes. And we try to get rid of what we call energy vampires. We try not to hire them.

But if they slip by us, or they develop, we try to coach them up quickly or coach them out.”

To make it at Monogram, you have to have that positive energy, embrace diversity, enjoy giving back, and enjoy the entrepreneurial spirit.

“This isn’t an eight-to-five job,” the entrepreneur says. “The leaders here work long and hard.

When you’re growing as fast as we have, you always will have lots of growing pains. It takes a certain kind of personality to deal with all the constant change and uncertainty that comes with being part of a rapid growth company.”

Schledwitz says it surprised some people that Monogram’s growth has been more organic than by acquisitions. “We certainly get publicity when we do acquisitions. And we’ve done a lot and plan on doing a lot more. Really, 60 percent of our growth has been organic.”

And change, Schledwitz says, is coming: “The company is really at a flection point right now. We are an entrepreneur-driven company that has built what we have today off of a combination of hard work, a never-never-give-up attitude, and developing some great relationships. But as we go to the next phase — the business books talk about going from an entrepreneur stage to the pioneer stage — it’s going to require us putting in a different level of processes, and bringing in some people with skill sets to supplement and complement what we have, because we’re trying to build this company to last. We’re not building this company to sell. We have plans, and goals of going over a billion dollars in revenue in the coming years. And we plan on being around here for a long time.”

With the aggressive business plan and the corporate culture, Monogram is also trying to remain more transparent that a typical private company.

“We have quarterly town hall meetings with hundreds of folks,” he says, “bringing them up to date on how we’re doing financially. We report our strategy and we try to communicate early and often.”

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200-1000 EMPLOYEES

KIM HEATHCOTT CLARION SECURITY

Walk the walk, talk the talk.

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>>> BY JILL JOHNSON PIPER

Imagine you’ve finally scheduled that girls’ trip with your friends from college, the ones you’ve kept up with for 30 years. You’re on the other side of the United States and the phone rings after midnight.

“It was a policeman who started the sentence with ‘Your guy is on the way to The Med, but I’m not sure he’s alive. Shots were fired and we’re trying to figure out what happened,’” recalled Kim Heathcott, CEO and owner of Clarion Security, a service that supplies security guards and patrols.

The officer had run the tags for the company car the guard was driving, and the call came to her. The guard fought off the attacker, recovered from the stab wound (not a gunshot), and returned to work for Clarion.

Little wonder. Heathcott runs Clarion, which she founded in 2009, on the premise that the employees are every bit as important as the clients.

“When you’re in a business where your employees are in potential life-threatening situations, you pray for their safety, you give them the training and the tools they need, because they are that barrier person between the clients’ assets and those who would harm them,” she says.

For the first three years of the company, Heathcott provided a meal for every guard who worked an eight-hour shift. “Think about it: guards, once they get on a job, can never leave.

If they forget to bring a meal or a drink, they’re out of luck. There may not be a microwave or even a vending machine on site,” she says.

And here’s where the CEO thinking comes in: When a manager delivers a sandwich to a guard, Clarion’s supervisor gets a sense of how the job is going for the client who wants more quality control over the officers’ presence.

After three years, Heathcott surveyed the employees, and then she listened. They said they’d rather have a bonus or a higher base wage than a sandwich-per-shift, so Heathcott phased in both over the course of a few years.

This family-owned business (husband Larry Heathcott is head of sales and marketing) operates out of an unassuming office suite in East Memphis. Neighbors include a tailor, a dentist, and an office supply store: no glass ceilings or executive washrooms for this CEO. She describes her management style as “servant leadership,” and unapologetically has a finger in every pie.

“I understand all the jobs because I’ve done them. I would call myself a hands-on leader,” she says. “In order for me to understand something, I need to walk the walk and talk the talk.”

Her approach seems to be working: From one employee with not a single client in 2009 to 600 employees and 90 clients (including the City of Memphis and Shelby County), Heathcott and her

“I understand all the jobs because I’ve done them.

I’d call myself a hands-on leader.”

team made Clarion the largest woman-owned business in Memphis for the past three years.

In 2017, revenues exceeded $10 million.

While Heathcott sees the role of CEO — the management and development of capital, personnel, strategy, and timing — as “gender neutral,” she is passionate about businesses owned by women. The National Association of Women Business Owners recently named her Business Owner of the Year 2017, and national business magazine Inc. has recognized Clarion in its list of 5,000 fastest-growing businesses for three consecutive years.

Part of Heathcott’s strategy was to brand the company in such a way that it stood out from its competitors, which tend to fall back on quasi-military terms like “defense” or “armed” or “surveillance.”

“None of that really resonated with me,” she says, so she regrouped and took a visual approach. While looking at a website of old English shields, one stood out: a clarion, or battle trumpet, on an orange field.

“The definition said ‘ready for battle’ and I knew as a new company, I’d have to battle to make our name, but also I liked the symbolism of ‘good protecting against evil.’”

The present logo has a double shield representing the mutual protection of employees and customers.

You may see Clarion’s officers in relatively tranquil situations, like the city’s libraries, or in more volatile deployments like the Shelby County Courthouse or 201 Poplar. Heathcott is careful to match the right skill set with the situation.

Security jobs run the gamut, she says, from the person who sits and watches equipment to make sure it’s not getting stolen to the person who is the gatekeeper for a high-profile corporate headquarters or a public building.

“When they’re the first contact someone has coming in a property, there’s a lot of customer service compared to the guard who sits in a car all night. Other positions have a lot of technical complexity if there’s equipment that needs monitoring,” she says.

Clients pay for security officers to be the “eyes and ears” of their company, Heathcott says, and the work is not as mundane as it appears. “If the officer is the first to notice water on the floor and discover a burst pipe, it’s going to make a difference to the client, one way or another.”

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DANIEL WEICKENAND ORION FCU

Committed to community.

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>>> BY JANE SCHNEIDER

What does it take to revitalize a company? Decisiveness? Grit? Vision? Just ask the longtime employees at Orion Federal Credit Union who participated in its transformation under the leadership of CEO Daniel Weickenand and you’ll learn it’s all that and more.

Weickenand has built his career on turning around troubled institutions, helping credit unions overcome poor management decisions.

“All leaders should have vision,” says the 53-year-old executive. “You have to move forward. In the credit union world, if you’re not growing, you’re not going anywhere.”

During his seven-year tenure, Orion has grown to be the largest credit union in West Tennessee, with more than 62,000 members and $700 million in assets. Weickenand, who sits on the board of directors of the National Association of Federal Credit Unions, places Orion among the top 5 percent of credit unions nationally.

Their prospects weren’t always so rosy. Weickenand, formerly chief financial officer for FedEx Employees Credit Association, was recommended for the position in 2010 after a year-long search. With more than 20 years of credit union management experience, a deep accounting background, and extensive knowledge of the Memphis market, he was well qualified for the job.

But on joining Orion (then the Memphis Area Teachers Credit Union), Weickenand found a deeply distressed company with an equally dispirited staff. At the time, Orion’s membership hovered at 49,000, but overbuilding and poor lending practices had left the financial cooperative reeling.

Regulators had even intervened in recent years, trying to right the ship that was clearly sinking.

“I knew it would be a challenge,” he says.

“But I didn’t know how big a challenge until I got here.” Reviewing their books brought the financial picture into sharper focus. “Nothing looked good. Nothing.”

“They had $480 million in assets and the average age of their customer was close to 60; that’s dangerous for a financial institution because [people at that age] don’t borrow and that’s how we make money. There was no executive staff. They’d lost $25 million in two years. There was significant capital rolling out the door.”

To Weickenand, it was an opportunity.

Since credit unions are not-for-profit lending institutions whose members are shareholders, he insisted they become more community focused.

That commitment is reflected in their tag line: “A better Memphis means a better Orion.”

But rebuilding would have to come first.

Then 46, Weickenand realized he had to make some tough decisions quickly. First, he interviewed every staff member — roughly 100 employees — to learn what they needed

“Take risks, listen, say what you’ll do and then do it. You have to treat people with dignity and stand for something larger than yourself.”

to work smarter. “Within five minutes, I could tell who would stay and who would be going.”

He moved some employees into key positions that would grow their talent and focused on fostering collaboration among departments. He streamlined the credit union’s lending practices and made accountability the new watchword.

“There were nights when I didn’t sleep much that first year,” he admits. “It’s a lot of responsibility when people are putting their trust in you.”

In year two, the regulators finally began to ease their grip, “because they were confident I would fail,” he says wryly.

Weickenand began to whittle down delinquency loan cycles and opted to rebrand the company, a move he hoped would enable them to shed their beleaguered image. “I thought, we can spend eight to 10 years rebuilding our reputation or we can spend two to three years defining who we are by the actions we take,” he says.

Since the credit union had expanded its customer base beyond the teachers who launched it more than 60 years ago, he wanted a name that reflected their openness to the entire community. The company gained a new lease on life as Orion, a word Weickenand plucked from the dictionary.

He then took another major risk. He converted the company’s decrepit core banking system to a new one, a decision his board and executive staff supported but one he likens to an organ transplant.

“You either come out healthier or they’re kicking dirt on you,” he says. Though he personally knew the programmer, “We were only the company’s fifth client. Everyone in the industry was watching.”

His gamble paid off. The company gradually turned the financial corner while green-lighting an operating system that is now used by lending institutions nationally. He passed along savings to their membership by offering products like a 3 percent interest rate on checking accounts.

“You have to take risks, to listen, to say what you’ll do and then do it,” he says of leadership.

“You have to treat people with dignity and stand for something larger than yourself.”

To that end, Weickenand has committed Orion to investing in Memphis, by supporting more than 100 nonprofits and giving more than $2 million to fund community initiatives. He encourages volunteerism, allowing employees time on the clock to serve at one of a number of schools Orion partners with, and promotes attendance on nonprofit boards.

Weickenand says he wants to be deliberate in living up to the company’s ethos: “Orion operates with courage, integrity, honesty, and commitment to our employees, customers, and community.”

FEBRUARY / MARCH 2018 | INSIDE MEMPHIS BUSINESS.COM |

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1-50 EMPLOYEES

JENNIFER KRUCHTEN TRAVELENNIUM

Clarity and simplicity.

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> > > BY ANNA TR AVERSE

You park at the airport, snap a photo of your spot number. You roll your suitcase down one moving walkway, then another and another; Otis Redding’s voice glides alongside you. Having printed your ticket at the office, you stroll right up to the security checkpoint. At which point you realize: no driver’s license. Your flight is in 55 minutes — you’ll never make it back in time if you leave to retrieve the license.

And the next flight to the city where you have an important meeting this afternoon? Oversold. What do you do?

If you booked the flight yourself, well, you are out of luck — no matter how good a deal you thought you unearthed. If you have Jennifer Kruchten and her team at Travelennium on call, you’ll be booked on that oversold flight, with ample time for a (delighted, no doubt) colleague to run the license to the airport.

Your meeting will go off with nary a hitch.

The travel industry has changed in big, sweeping ways since 1989, when Kruchten started working at Travelennium (which was then Omega Travel — the company was renamed in 1999).

And the pace of change has only accelerated. Of course the matter of the internet comes up early in a conversation with Kruchten. With so many aggregators online offering enticing discounts, how does a travel agency stay viable?

By embracing change. Kruchten’s team of agents encourage people to research fares online — but to call them when it’s time to book. In an industry whose pricing and logic can feel opaque, Travelennium offers clarity and simplicity.

In 2001, when Kruchten took ownership of Travelennium, there were 37,000 travel agencies in the United States. Today, there are only 7,000. That’s the backdrop to Kruchten’s success, which continues to grow: By August of this year, Travelennium had equaled its 2016 full-year earnings.

Her parents had always encouraged Kruchten and her siblings to travel. “You get to learn different cultures, different ways of life,” she says.

And she always has had a head for numbers: After three years of college, at Transylvania University in Kentucky, she had accumulated enough credits to graduate with a major in business, minor in finance. (She stayed on for the senior year anyway — because experiences matter.)

Kruchten explored all aspects of the business — how to keep the trains running on time, if you will — over her first decade with the company. From accounting to group meetings to leisure travel, she had learned the routes.

And then came a sudden rush of arrivals. She and her husband Lance were entertaining the notion of buying a business. Meanwhile, the owners of Travelennium were growing older, thinking of selling. It was just after 9/11 and changes in the travel industry were underway. Not to mention, Kruchten

“We want the entire trip to be a good memory — we want it to be effervescent.”

had twins at home who were only a year old (they’re now seniors at Christian Brothers High School).

But her father had always told her, “If you can ever own a business and take care of people, you should.” He was a physician, and believed there to be no greater satisfaction than taking care of people — one method being to employ them.

In October of 2001, she bought the company.

“I’m thinking to myself,” she recalls, “oh my stars, what have I done?” One thing she had done: gone from co-worker to owner. A transition that could have proved challenging has been rewarding instead. Krutchen says she “would never ask anyone to do anything that I myself wouldn’t do.” The tight-knit company of about 20, many of whom have worked together for decades, watch out for each other.

The team continues to seek new opportunities, too, to add to their wealth of experience. In 2008, Travelennium moved into the East Memphis building they now occupy, a converted residence on Colonial Road. The space — welcoming and warm; Krutchen’s office is in what would have been the parlor — has made possible new offerings.

They’re open Saturday mornings, and after work on Thursdays, when clients can enjoy a drink and a bite while nibbling on new trip ideas. Those preparing for Paris can stop by for a weekly evening French class, vocabulary and conjugation lessons loosened with a few sips of wine — sips that make slipping into a new accent a bit less mortifying.

“We want the entire trip to be a good memory — we want it to be effervescent,” says Krutchen.

In addition to personal travel — honeymoons and family adventures — Travelennium also works with a roster of corporate clients on meetings and conferences. For one large corporate group, whose biannual, 8,000-person conferences they arrange, the team is already negotiating contracts for meetings in 2023.

When businesses use the agency for their ongoing travel needs, Krutchen points out, it’s easier to keep an eye on overall expenditures and to be sure that companies can locate all their travelers. “If there is, god forbid, an international or domestic incident, companies need to know where their people are, how to communicate with them and get them back safely.” Another way of taking care of people.

To Krutchen, success is to be shared. A few hours after our chat, she’s planning to speak with a class at St. Mary’s about the travel industry, and about “how they themselves can become CEOs of companies — it empowers the young women to see that hey, they can do it, too.”

FEBRUARY / MARCH 2018 | INSIDE MEMPHIS BUSINESS.COM |

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Professional Advancement Opportunities in Memphis • • •

C O M P I L E D

B Y

S A M U E L

Whether a recent college graduate, a new member to the workforce, or an already-settled employee, it can be tough to distinguish yourself from the crowd. While companies are always looking for new recruits, applications and resumes flood in from prospective workers, making it easy to get lost in the surge of those seeking a position in their chosen fields. Luckily, Memphis-area institutions have made a push to create X

C I C C I

Barret School of Banking

T

he Barret Graduate School of Banking calls the Christian Brothers University Campus home, and relies on a wealth of experienced individuals from its Board of Regents. Ranging from bank executives to other financial service industry specialists, the leaders of the Barret Graduate School of Banking have been putting together quality educational programs for more than 45 years, making it one of Memphis’ best options for those seeking employment in the commercial banking or financial services sector.

Available Programs: ◗◗ Barret Graduate School Three year graduate program, annual one-week residency session, 40+ hours of classroom instruction each year.

more advancement opportunities for workers of all ages.

“Since its founding, the Barret School of Banking has built a national reputation by attracting the best instructors in the country and holding an annual lecture event, while keeping tuition well below the industry average and class size small.”

— Chris Kelley, director/president, Barret School of Banking

◗◗ Commercial Lending Academy Topics include: Loan structuring, loan packages and business writing skills, and loan pricing concepts, among others. ◗◗ Understanding Bank Profitability Topics include: Interest rate risk and asset liablity management; competitive positioning and peer bank performance reviews; and balance sheet, income, and expense statement reviews, among others.

B

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DIRECTOR:

Chris Kelley

$1,395/session, years one & two; $1,345/session, year three.

CORE PROGRAMS TUITION: $345-$1,195 GRADUATE SCHOOL TUITION:

For more information, please visit barret.ws 650 East Parkway South Memphis, Tennessee 38104

Rhodes College has consistently been ranked as one of the most beautiful liberal arts colleges in the country, and is even a certified arboretum.

Rhodes College rought to Memphis in 1925 by Charles Diehl under the name of Southwestern, Rhodes College has long been a staple of the liberal arts scene in Memphis.

Its Masters in Accountancy program, led

by Pamela Church, offers a two-semester, high-level course that teaches a complete understanding of accepted professional accounting practices and supports entry into the accounting field. The program boasts 100 percent job placement at the conclusion of the course, with many alumni taking up positions at the Big Four auditing firms.

◗◗ Compliance Programs Sessions: Lending Compliance and Operations/Deposit, BSA/AML Compliance. ◗◗ Human Resource Management Program Topics include: Employment law; employee recruitment, selection, and placement; and disciplinary systems, among others.

Available Programs: ◗◗ Master of Science in Accounting CHAIR:

Pamela Church Around $22,000 per semester.

TUITION:

“[Rhodes students] stand apart from other new hires because they have a strong liberal arts background and can communicate in oral and written forms as well as think critically and analyze thoroughly.”

For more information, please visit rhodes.edu.

2000 North Parkway Memphis, Tennessee 38112

— Dr. Pamela Church, chair of Rhodes Masters in Accountancy Program

INSIDE MEMPHIS BUSINESS.COM | FEBRUARY / MARCH 2018

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Christian Brothers University

C

hristian Brothers University has been active in Memphis since 1871, but its legacy stretches much farther.

The institution itself has been around for more than three centuries. To continue its tradition of education, Christian Brothers University has created a vast curriculum of graduate level programs spanning topics as diverse as accountancy to the arts. The college has three main criteria for its educational quality — critical thinking, hands-on experience, and ethical context — and aims to convey those values through each of its graduate pathways.

Available Programs: ◗◗ Master of Accountancy Concentrations: Forensic Accounting, Financial Management. ◗◗ Master of Business Administration Concentrations: Finance, General Management, Marketing, Sports Management, Healthcare Management, Project Management, Commercial Banking (see Barret School of Banking), Nonprofit Management. ◗◗ Master of Catholic Studies Spring courses include Christology, Catholic Spirituality, and Catholic Social Ethics. ◗◗ Graduate Education Programs

“The same emphases that define CBU’s undergraduate program — critical thinking, hands-on experience, and ethical context — carry through in its master’s-level programs.

In step with our Lasallian tradition, we strive to provide our graduate students with individual attention as they pursue a practical, real-world education. ” — Dr. John Smarrelli, president, CBU

Programs: Master of Arts in Teaching, Master of Education, Master of Science in Educational Leadership, and the LANCE/ LEaPS post-baccalaureate and licensure program. ◗◗ Computer Information Systems Designed with the option to complete degree on campus, as a hybrid curriculum (classroom and online instruction), or completely online. ◗◗ Engineering Management Concentrations: Engineering Management, Construction Management, Data Analytics, Information Technology, Innovation, Packaging Engineering, Quality of Medical Devices. ◗◗ Physician Assistant Studies Mission: To meet the needs of those suffering from a lack of quality primary care services by training healthcare providers who deliver excellent and

Dr. John Smarrelli Ranges from a fully subsidized teaching residency to $25,000 per year.

PRESIDENT: COST:

For more information, please visit cbu.edu.

650 East Parkway South Memphis, Tennessee 38104

nessee’s leading attorneys, in addition to two of the state’s five Supreme Court justices.

Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, University of Memphis

Dual-degree Programs: ◗◗ JD/MBA ◗◗ JD/MA in Political Science ◗◗ JD/MPH

T

he Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law offers a wide range of legal instruction. The school offers certificates in Advocacy, Business Law, Health Law, and Tax Law for more specialized tracks through the program. Along with the core programs, the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law’s influence extends much farther into the city. A quick survey of the local legal scene will bring up names at many of the top firms in the Mid-South area who completed their graduate law studies at the University of Memphis. In addition, some of the school’s facilities have been ranked among the top law schools around the country. The school’s cast of notable alumni include many of Ten-

compassionate care using current evidencebased medical information and knowledge.

“Memphis Law offers an outstanding program of legal education, emphasizing cutting edge doctrinal and practical skills training, public service through innovative community-based educational programs and partnerships, and a distinctive commitment to experiential learning.”

—Peter Letsou, dean, Cecil C. Humphrey’s School of Law

Certificate Programs: ◗◗ Advocacy ◗◗ Business Law ◗◗ Health Law ◗◗ Tax Law Peter Letsou Around $9,000 per semester for in-state enrollment.

DEAN:

TUITION:

For more information, please visit memphis.edu/law 1 North Front Street Memphis, Tennessee 38103

FEBRUARY / MARCH 2018 | INSIDE MEMPHIS BUSINESS.COM |

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The Fogelman College of Business & Economics, University of Memphis

T

he Fogelman College of Business & Economics offers a large variety of graduate study opportunities in business and economics. There are four main core MBAs available, in addition to a large selection of secondary programs. There are six departments in FCBE — School of Accountancy; Business Information and Technology; Economics; Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate; Management; and Marketing and Supply Chain Management. With Memphis proving to be fertile ground for big businesses, FCBE takes full advantage of the environment its situated within, giving students quick access to the business community through projects and internships that

“The Fogelman College of Business & Economics has master’s programs to suit each and every individual’s needs, including full-time, evening, and online MBA programs, the Executive MBA program, and a variety of specialized master’s programs for professionals who would like to focus intensively in one functional area of business.”

— Rajiv Grover, dean, FCBE

“New Memphis is not just enhancing careers, we are activating and connecting a community of leaders to push our city forward.”

— Nancy Coffee, president, New Memphis

N

Momentum Nonprofit Partners

M

omentum Nonprofit Partners, formerly known as the Alliance for Nonprofit Excellence, has rebranded and continues to act as a valuable resource to nonprofits in the wider Memphis community. While 501(c)3 programs are able to become members of the organization, Momentum Nonprofit Partners offers

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Specialized Master’s Programs: ◗◗ MA in Economics ◗◗ MS in Accounting ◗◗ MS in Information Systems ◗◗ MSBA in Finance Doctoral Program: ◗◗ PhD in Business Administration DEAN:

give real-world experience.

MBA Programs: ◗◗ Professional MBA ◗◗ Online MBA ◗◗ International MBA ◗◗ Customer-Driven MBA ◗◗ Executive MBA ◗◗ Pharmd/MBA (dual-degree for students enrolled at UTHSC)

New Memphis ew Memphis is an institution dedicated to the cultivation and enrichment of the local business community. It offers several programs geared towards leadership. Embark, a threemonth course, guides those in their 20s who have been following their career path for two to seven years. The aim is to turn out individuals capable of excelling in leadership and building connections throughout the community. The Fellows Program is a year-long course for those in the middle of their career paths. Over the year, the programs teaches its participants leadership skills with the goal of turning each member into a city am-

◗◗ JD/MBA (dual-degree for students enrolled at Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law)

bassador and inclusive leader who will propel the city forward. The Leadership Development Intensive (LDI) is a program geared toward executive level professionals. The residential exercise takes place over a three and a half days at the Madison Hotel, and focuses on leadership skills to reinforce each participant’s personal strengths. All entrants require a nomination. For new arrivals to the

Dr. Rajiv Grover Around $11,000 per year

TUITION:

For more information, please visit memphis.edu/fcbe University of Memphis 3675 Central Avenue Memphis, Tennessee 38152

city’s professional scene, New Memphis also offers more casual Newcomers and Summer Experience programs.

Available Programs: ◗◗ Embark Program ◗◗ Fellows Program ◗◗ LDI ◗◗ Newcomers & Summer Experience Nancy Coffee Embark ($300); Fellows ($1,200); LDI ($6,800); Newcomers and Summer Experience (free).

PRESIDENT AND CEO: COST:

For more information, please visit newmemphis.org.

22 N. Front Street, suite 500 Memphis, Tennessee 38103

a wide variety of events, training, and networking events for individuals.

Lectures and events cover topics relevant to the entire gamut of the nonprofit sector, from Equity 101 lessons for CEOs and executive directors, to full-day classroom sessions covering fundraising techniques. Participants can register for events on Momentum’s website: npexcellence.org 1919 Lynnfield Rd #200 Memphis, Tennessee 38119

INSIDE MEMPHIS BUSINESS.COM | FEBRUARY / MARCH 2018

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Leadership Memphis

L

eadership Memphis focuses on finding and training individuals with the necessary attributes to become great leaders. Their three programs — Executive, FastTrack, and Grassroots — connect potential leaders in environments that will equip them to make a difference in improving the city. Leadership Memphis even recently organized a new program, the Criminal Justice Program, which aims to forge bonds between anyone involved in the Criminal Justice Industry.

“People who really want to make something better find a way to be part of the change process. They find it beneficial to participate in Leadership Memphis in order to increase their understanding of the community, and to connect with other leaders who share their hunger to make great things happen.”

– David Williams, president/CEO, Leadership Memphis

Available Programs: ◗ Executive ◗ FastTrack ◗ Grassroots ◗ Criminal Justice David Williams Executive ($3,995); FastTrack ($1,299); Grassroots ($200); Criminal Justice (for tuition rate, contact Tori Taylor: ttaylor@leadershipmemphis.com).

PRESIDENT/CEO: TUITION:

For more info, visit: leadershipmemphis.com 365 S. Main Street Memphis, Tennessee 38103

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Prepare yourself to work in one of the most robust job sectors in the USA.

Memphis needs professionals with healthfocused degrees in our hospitals and research institutions. Whether you are a recent high school graduate or already employed in the healthcare industry, prepare yourself to meet these needs with one of more than 20 healthcare-related degrees from CBU. From management to hands-on practitioners:

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University of Memphis: MILE Leadership Program

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ts own entity within the Fogelman College of Business & Economics, the University of Memphis: MILE (Memphis Institute of Leadership Education) program offers the next level of business leadership education for graduate and undergraduate students at the Fogelman College. There are four key aspects of the MILE Program: ◗ Selects students mainly from the Fogelman College of Business & Economics. ◗ Narrows its focus to developing future leaders in Memphis and the MidSouth. ◗ Has a wide variety of leadership development activities from which to choose. ◗ Includes a leadership mentoring program as a main component of the course.

For more info, visit mileprogram.com University of Memphis, 3675 Central Ave. Memphis, Tennessee 38152

cbu.edu/healthed

Greater Memphis Alliance for a Competetive Workforce

T R E H E A R S A L D I N N E R S • P R I VAT E P A R T I E S • M O N T H LY W I N E D I N N E R S T W O F O R T U E S D AY • W I L D G A M E S E L E C T I O N 5960 Getwell Road

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3165 Forest Hill Irene Road

Southaven, MS

Germantown, TN

662.890.2467

901.249.5661

88 Union Avenue

Memphis, TN 901.527.5337

www.mesquitechophouse.com

INSIDE MEMPHIS BUSINESS.COM | FEBRUARY / MARCH 2018

1001 E. Jackson Avenue Oxford, MS 38655 662.232.8855

he Greater Memphis Alliance for a Competitive Workforce was created in 2014 as a priority initiative of the Greater Memphis Chamber’s Chairman Circle and the Memphis and Shelby County Regional Economic Development Plan. GMAC Workforce was constructed through collaboration with the Brookings Institution Policy Program and aims to provide a bridge between employers and the talented professionals they need.

For more information, please visit gmacworkforce.com.

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TriCore Builders

Local construction crew brings Amazon to town.

• • •

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C I C C I

TriCore’s Crossroads project in Olive Branch, Mississippi.

As far as big fish go, you can’t get much bigger than Amazon, the internet retailer that needs no introduction. Jeff Bezos’ empire appears to be looking to build distribution centers in major cities around the country in order to smooth the delivery process and have a bigger physical footprint, and Memphis is up next. For a company as large as Amazon, it would be easy for it to seek out one of the biggest contractors in the region.

Two local veterans of the construction scene, however, had different plans.

Jack Yates and Chris Lee have more than 50 years of construction experience between them, and both cut their teeth at large firms in the South. Yates spent the bulk of his career at Kojima Building & Designs Group, a Japanese based general contractor.

“Their national headquarters is in the United States, and I ran the Memphis office for the last 10 years of my tenure there,” says Yates. “I’ve basically worked out of the Memphis office my entire 38 |

career and built over 25 million square feet of warehouse industrial manufacturing facilities in the region.” Lee started at a small contracting firm in Memphis, before putting in 20 years at the Memphis office of Industrial Developments International, known as IDI Gazeley. The co-founders, who had crossed paths many times over the course of their careers, began thinking of starting their own company.

Two years ago, in January 2016,

the time finally felt right, and Lee and Yates began a new chapter at TriCore Builders. While it may have been a gamble to strike out on their own, the two had a history of quality work and excellent work relationships to call on to make the transition as painless as possible. “It was kind of a perfect storm. We had a lot of loyal, repeat clients in the area that we hoped would support us, which they have, when we started the company,” says Yates. “The start of the company came through with people who had existing work relationships in town.

The biggest factor in all this is that our repeat clients trust us.

When we started the company, they entrusted us with their new projects.”

TriCore Builders’ main focus is on the supply chain market, which covers the process of producing and distributing certain

Jack Yates

“SUPPLY CHAIN IS BASICALLY DISTRIBUTION AND REPACKING CENTERS. THEY’RE LARGE FACILITIES, USUALLY OVER 200,000 SQUARE FEET.”

INSIDE MEMPHIS BUSINESS.COM | FEBRUARY / MARCH 2018

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PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY TRICORE BUILDERS

Stateline Business Park, Building K, in Southaven, Mississippi.

products. “Supply chain is basically distribution and repacking centers. They’re large facilities, usually over 200,000 square feet.

The buildings we’re doing now are anywhere between 200,000 and 1.1 million square feet.”

Before TriCore, there were only a few companies that catered to that specific need, and it just so happened that Yates and Lee had extensive experience in that market. That factor is especially important, considering the advances being made in that particular sector. “People aren’t really using warehouses anymore, because they have more than just racks and product. A lot of them are fully automated and some of them are half-automated.

There’s a lot more going on inside these square buildings than you’re seeing, and it’s more than just product on racks these days.”

With their expertise in the

field, TriCore began sounding out potential clients and quickly acquired new projects. Having initially partnered with Roy Construction Company Inc (RCCI)., TriCore was able to get startedimmediately, letting RCCI handle the concrete work. The first major project was an expansion for Milwaukee Tool, and the second a Nissan distribution center outside of Nashville. Former connections came in handy for the company. “We built their [Milwaukee Tool’s] original place, and they called us and wanted to do an expansion,” says Lee. “That project was done for a place called Monmouth Realty. The Nashville project was done for IDI Gazeley.” Nissan proved to be one of TriCore’s bigger tests, with the final building coming out at 870,000 square feet. The project was completed on time, and with no issues.

That first year of hard work resulted in $36 million in contracts for 2016. Even better was 2017 when TriCore landed its biggest contract yet. When Amazon first announced its plans to open a distribution center in Memphis, TriCore found itself pitted against several much larger firms. “It was a difficult process,” says Yates.

“They’ve got four or five contractors that they typically use around the country, and we had to break into that system.” However, Lee and Yates’ knowledge of the local community, connections, and final cost estimate made them stand out. Plus, their personal proximity to the project helped to convince Amazon that there would be a higher guarantee of quality. “One of our advantages is that Chris and I are hands-on. We have a small corporate structure here, so we’re literally boots on the ground type guys. We’re there at the projects

Chris Lee

“CHRIS AND I ARE HANDS-ON. WE HAVE A SMALL CORPORATE STRUCTURE HERE, SO WE’RE LITERALLY BOOTS ON THE GROUND TYPE GUYS.”

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Baker Donelson congratulates Karl Schledwitz for the well-deserved recognition of being named CEO of the Year.

Here’s to many more decades of community, partnership and friendship. www.bakerdonelson.com THIS IS AN ADVERTISEMENT. Ben Adams is Chairman and CEO of Baker Donelson and is located in our Memphis office at 165 Madison Avenue, Suite 2000, Memphis, TN 38103. Phone 901.526.2000. © 2018 Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC.

REAL PEOPLE REAL NEEDS REAL SOLUTIONS Visit mifa.org to volunteer.

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INSIDE MEMPHIS BUSINESS.COM | FEBRUARY / MARCH 2018

LEFT: TriCore Workers haul a slab during construction on the Milwaukee Tool expansion in Olive Branch, Missisippi RIGHT: The Milwaukee Tool expansion interior.

While supply chain buildings are the firm’s primary

on a daily basis, and our clients seem to like that mentality in our approach to running our business. We don’t just hand it off to a manager or engineer and say good luck, but we’re out there daily to ensure quality control and safety.”

The choice to build in Memphis has several benefits. When the project is completed, Amazon plans to staff around 600 people in the center, creating hundreds of new jobs for the community. Until then, TriCore has used a strictly local workforce to contribute to the project. “We’ll probably have 300 to 400 workers total on-site locally. If someone else had been awarded the project it might have been 40 percent of that. That’s an advantage for us and the city of Memphis.”

Amazon initially submitted an application for tax incentives to the Economic Development Growth Engine (EDGE) last year, promising to invest around $72 million into the project. The board officially approved the application last October. Financial projections from EDGE predict that the project will generate somewhere around $37 million in local tax revenue during Amazon’s 15-year payment plan. The average base salary for employees at the new distribution center is estimated to be around $29,000 per year, and that doesn’t include employee benefits.

Memphis’ Amazon center is on the smaller

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focus, TriCore also has extensive experience with other facets of construction, including remodeling, interior office work and tenant finish, and it has done work in the medical and laboratory construction field.

end of the spectrum at around 615,000 square feet. Euclid, Ohio’s will stand at 650,000, while Shelby, Michigan, and Staten Island, New York, will have centers at one million and 855,000 square feet, respectively. When completed, Memphis’ center will increase Amazon’s Tennessee presence, with previous projects already in Nashville, Murfreesboro, Lebanon, Charleston, and Chattanooga.

While it’s telling that Amazon views Memphis as a prime location to build a new distribution center, the decision has no bearing on where Amazon is looking to build its second headquarters.

For now, construction on the new distribution center, located near the Memphis International Airport at 3282 East Holmes Road, has been smooth. A month into the project, TriCore had completely finished the foundation along with 75 percent of the f loor slab. According to Yates, supply chain centers can take anywhere from six to ten months to complete, on average. Barring any huge weather delays or setbacks, TriCore should meet their end date of October 1st of this year, upon which Amazon will finish the process by installing their equipment. With a solid track record in their first two years, Yates and Lee may get a chance to work on more Amazon projects in the future.

The end of 2017 had TriCore projected to

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CNBC RANKS W&A 29 IN TOP 100 WEALTH MANAGEMENT FIRMS FOR 2015 * * Disclaimer: Waddell & Associates (“Waddell”) is an SEC-registered investment adviser. The “Top 100 Fee-Only Wealth Managers” is granted by CNBC, an independent association unaffiliated with Waddell. The CNBC Digital Team, along with Meridian-IQ created the Top 100 Fee-Only Wealth Management ranking based on scores for the following measures weighted according to a proprietary formula to arrive at a final total rank: AUM, staff with professional designations, average account size, client segmentation, growth of assets, years in business and other key factors. Additional information on the factors involved for inclusion in this ranking can be found at the following location: http://www.cnbc.com/id/102605785.

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HERO needs a

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memphisparent.com FEBRUARY / MARCH 2018 | INSIDE MEMPHIS BUSINESS.COM |

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have $61.5 million in contracts, almost double what it had earned in its first year. It would also place TriCore Builders firmly above Kojima Building & Designs Group, Yates’ old employer, in revenue. That’s a huge jump, but Yates and Lee aren’t looking to stop there. “We want to continue to do this supply chain type work in town for our clients,” says Yates, “and we’d like to branch out to other markets and local regions: Little Rock, Jackson, Mississippi, and Nashville.” For the long term, Yates eyes contracts in cities farther away, with Dallas,

THE END OF 2017 HAD TRICORE PROJECTED TO HAVE $61.5 MILLION IN CONTRACTS, ALMOST DOUBLE WHAT IT HAD EARNED IN ITS FIRST YEAR. IT WOULD ALSO PLACE TRICORE BUILDERS FIRMLY ABOVE KOJIMA BULIDING & DESIGNS GROUP, YATES’ OLD EMPLOYER, IN REVENUE.

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Texas, and Cincinnati, Ohio, as two of the primary targets. Seeley and Company, a developer based in Dallas, recently purchased a building in Memphis that TriCore had renovated. They called back later to gauge TriCore’s interest in working on a property in Texas. Plus, Lee’s old employer, IDI Gazeley, has regional offices in both Cincinnati and Dallas.

While TriCore Builders may only be two years old, don’t make the mistake of calling them a small fish. Despite supply chain being the main focus, the staff has extensive experience with other facets of construction. Occasional projects have involved interior office work and tenant finish, which involves the remodeling of an existing commercial property. TriCore has extensive experience in the medical and laboratory construction field as well, with staff previously working with companies such as American Esoteric Laboratories, Millstone Medical, Smith Medical, GlaxoSmithKline, and Pfizer. Additionally, they can also provide industrial work, ranging from equipment foundations to the installation of electrical services, piping, and wiring. Finally, TriCore’s team of subcontractors are available for remodeling jobs from small office spaces to complete building overhauls.

If TriCore’s expansion continues at its current rate, it could soon be one of the top firms in the Mid-South. Yates, for his part, is ready for anything. “We hope the local engineers and architects in the region will take notice, and that this assignment gives them confidence that we can handle any projects they might throw at us.”

CEO YEAR OF THE

Community Engagement Officer of the Year We know that’s not what CEO technically means, but for our CEO, it’s one in the same. At Orion, a big part of us is being a big part of the community.

Congratulations, Daniel Weickenand! Thank you for supporting all things Memphis.

m a e T n o i r O The

B E S T

O F

T I P

S H E E T

Leaders and trends

• • •

B Y

J O N

W.

S PA R K S

Every week, Inside Memphis Business issues its Tip Sheet, a digest of business news and trends. It’s a quick and useful read, and it’s easy to get: go to InsideMemphisBusiness.com and type in your email address.

To give you an idea, here are some items in recent weeks that we’ve featured.

Construction firms eye growth eventy-five percent of construction firms plan to expand their payrolls in 2018 as contractors are optimistic that economic conditions will remain strong as tax rates and regulatory burdens fall, according to survey results released by the Associated General Contractors of America and Sage Construction and Real Estate. Despite the general optimism outlined in Expecting Growth to Continue: The 2018 Construction Industry Hiring and Business Outlook, many firms report they remain worried about workforce shortages and infrastructure funding.

S

“Construction firms appear to be very optimistic about 2018 as they expect demand for all types of construction services to continue to expand,” said Stephen E. Sandherr, the association’s CEO. “This optimism is likely based on current economic conditions, an increasingly business-friendly regulatory environment and expectations the Trump administration will boost infrastructure investments.”

Sisters are doin’ it for themselves ennessee has an estimated 233,000 women-owned businesses, employing 151,500 according to the seventh State of Women-Owned Businesses Report, commissioned by American Express OPEN. The report analyzes data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Business Owners and factors in relative changes in Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The analysis, reported by industry, revenue and employment size at the national, state and top 50 metro levels, shares a new and nuanced investigation into the growth trends over the past 20 years among the 11.6 million women-owned enterprises which employ nearly 9 million people and generate more than $1.7 trillion in revenues.

Nationally, the number of women-owned firms increased by 114 percent from 1997 to 2017, compared to just a 44 percent increase among all businesses. Over the past 20 years, the number of women-owned firms has grown at a rate of 2.5 times faster than the national average.

Here are some of the numbers from Tennessee: ◗ Memphis ranked 2nd in growth of number of women-owned firms with a 241 percent increase, 41st in growth of jobs created with a 16.2 percent increase and 7th in growth of firm revenues with a 133.3 percent increase. ◗ Nashville ranked 15th in growth of number of women-owned firms with a 107.6 percent increase, 33rd in growth of jobs created with a 22.6 percent increase and 37th in growth of firm revenues with a 48.2 percent increase.

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LEFT: Memphis entrepreneur Carolyn Hardy, a leader in the local business community, is an inspiration for women-owned firms that, an American Express survey says, are growing rapidly in the area.

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Trey Moore

Leadership trio announced at Explore Bike Share xplore Bike Share has hired Trey Moore as its inaugural executive director to lead the Memphis nonprofit to its Spring 2018 launch of a 600-bike share system. In addition, Sara Studdard has been hired as community engagement and marketing director, and Rajah Brown as operations manager.

Moore, returning to his Memphis roots from Atlanta, has been executive director of voluntary health organizations for more than 12 years. He has worked in strategic relationship management, organizational leadership, as well as entrepreneurial fund development approaches and results.

“I watched my hometown of Memphis from afar and had grown eager to return to experience and take part in the city’s renaissance,” says Moore. “Explore Bike Share’s mission and goals encourage me, and to be a part of connecting people to their city is powerful.”

Roshun Austin, board member of Explore Bike Share and executive director of The Works CDC in South Memphis, says, “Trey understands that Explore Bike Share will neither be static nor exclusive. He is committed to being responsive and adaptive to the needs of the community, as already practiced by our partnerships with a multitude of neighborhood and community organizations.”

Moore will work with the Board of Directors, BCycle, and DCA, Explore Bike Share’s creative agency, to introduce the new transportation system to Memphis.

“Trey demonstrates a keen ability to balance a community engagement mentality with a discernment for financial sustainability and ROI for community partners and corporate sponsors,” said Jaske Goff, Explore Bike Share board hiring committee lead and Vice President, Operations for the Downtown Memphis Commission.

The Memphis Medical District Collaborative (MMDC) has been hosting Explore Bike Share’s leadership — including Moore and BCycle’s project lead — in a temporary office space. Simultaneously, Uptown warehouse space, donated by Benjamin Orgel, Billy Orgel, Adam Slovis, and Tom Marsh, will be used in early 2018 for

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station and bike buildout.

Studdard joins the nonprofit after serving as Explore Bike Share’s project manager for three years at DCA. She will work on program development, community outreach, marketing, sponsorship, and workplace culture.

Brown will guide, implement, and innovate the structure of the bike share system. He has 15 years of recreation management experience, including roles at Memphis Athletic Ministries, Inc. as Chief Program Officer, Director of Sports & Recreations, and Director of Operations. He recently directed the Mayor’s Safe Summer Initiative for the City of Memphis.

I’ve worked in restaurants where coffee is part of the program, but typically an afterthought. We’re trying to show restaurateurs it doesn’t have to be that way. It’s a chance to make a good impression, and we can help make that more effective.

As for our cold brew, we actually roast specifically for cold brew, which is something that nobody else can do, because restaurants don’t roast coffee. The roast profile for cold brew differs slightly from our regular roast profile in that we really try to bring out the citrus and the floral character in the cold brew. A lot of times cold brew just tastes like roasted cold coffee, so we try to make it a lot more interesting than just basic cold brew coffee.

Catching up with Edge Alley year ago, Edge Alley was an open area in a building next to High Cotton Brewing Company.

Tim Barker, Edge Alley’s co-founder and a hospitality consultant, was overseeing the work that was getting underway to transform the spare space full of concrete dust into an attractive mix of small shops and a 45seat restaurant with a first-rate coffee operation. The enterprise, at 600 Monroe, opened in July and continues to evolve with the latest effort being an expanded relationship with High Cotton. Tip Sheet asked Barker about how this singular project has been going.

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TIP SHEET: This is way more than a coffee shop, right?

TIM BARKER: I tell people that we are a restaurant with a spectacular coffee program. It’s really easy to get pigeonholed as a coffee shop just because we have an espresso machine. Most restaurants don’t do that. Most restaurants don’t roast their own coffee. We try to treat coffee the same way we would wines, spirits, or food.

We try to spend as much attention on that aspect of the restaurant operation as we do everything else.

TS: You also have what’s called a retail incubator going on?

TB: We have four micro retail spaces within our space 4,000 square feet is a lot for a restaurant. The goal from the beginning was to show that all of these components are viable in this neighborhood: restaurant, coffee, retail, and bring them all under one roof just as proof of concept in a way. Not proof of concept for us, but proof of concept for neighborhood development. There are a lot of people that own property in this neighborhood that are not developing it because they want someone else to go first. My partner decided he wanted to be first.

TS: The coffee operation is fairly sophisticated, it seems.

TB: Edge Coffee Company, the roasting operation, is a separate company. Edge Alley uses Edge Coffee Company coffee and we’re expanding. We’ve been roasting Thai beans since we opened but recently we’ve started roasting a lot of South American product that we’re happy with and we’ve started selling that to people outside of Edge Alley. We’ve got a couple of accounts across town right now, and then we have a full-time sales person showing people the difference between the coffee that we can provide versus the coffee that restaurants typically buy. We kind of target restaurants. As a chef, I’ve been interested in coffee for a long time, and

Can you hear me now? he trend toward people using their own smartphones and tablets for business purposes is inescapable. That’s why Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) programs and policies should become the rule rather than the exception. According to a survey by the B2B research firm Market and Markets, more than one-third (36 percent) of North American companies had BYOD programs in place at the start of this year and the rate is expected to climb to 50 percent in 2018.

Drayton Mayers, owner of TeamLogic IT Memphis, says, “This phenomenon means something else is rising, too: Mobile security risks.” For example, Mayers says, on any given day odds are six to 12 mobile apps are waiting

T

Tim Barker

TS: What about this new relationship with your neighbor, High Cotton Brewing Company?

TB: We share an investor and a partner, and from the beginning the idea has been to merge the two concepts in a very real way. We’re trying to activate this kind of campus so you can come in here in the morning, stick around until around lunch and then High Cotton will be open. So, you can have food, grab food, go next door and have a beer. As far as the guest experience is concerned, we’re trying to get people flowing between the two businesses for food, beverage, coffee, dinner, retail, shopping, everything.

TS: The Edge neighborhood is developing quickly, particularly with the Memphis Medical District Collaborative community development organization in the mix.

TB: We see a lot of pending development and projects for this neighborhood. We started this project before all of the development was announced a couple of years ago. So, we were excited to see that more people were interested in the neighborhood, not just us. It’s always been an issue for the neighborhood, with property owners that don’t necessarily either have the money to develop their property, or have the drive to build their property. We’re glad to see people making strides.

for you to launch an update on your smartphone. And when you do, many apps automatically harvest and upload all phone numbers and email addresses from your contacts.

With all this data moving through the ether, increasing cyber-risk seems inevitable. Computerworld columnist Evan Schuman believes your company’s BYOD practices should be protecting business and personal data.

“Here’s the uncomfortable truth,” Schuman wrote recently. “As long as you permit your corporate apps and data to coexist on the same device as personal apps and data, you have an obligation to police both.”

The simplest, best way, he suggests, is to offer basic penetration testing for your employees’ personal devices on a regular basis. This approach recognizes the reality of the BYOD world: Any risk to your employees’ personal data presents a risk to your company’s proprietary data.

The additional IT labor could be expensive, although probably not as costly as a data breach. According to the Ponemon Institute, the average per-record cost of a data breach for organizations worldwide is $225 and a whopping $380 for a medical record.

“Even modest breaches could put the incident’s expense well into seven to eight figures,” Mayers says.

“For example, a modest doctor’s office in Memphis could easily have 10,000 records, therefore a breach could cost between $2 million and $4 million.”

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H U M A N

R E S O U R C E S

The changing landscape

Harassment, drugs, and politics among challenges for HR professionals.

• • •

B Y

A I S L I N G

M A K I

Sexual harassment, tax reform, elections, changes to health care law, travel bans and changes to visa rules for immigrants, medical marijuana, social media guidelines — they’re all topics constantly on the radar for human resources professionals.

The past year has been hectic, to say the least, for HR specialists, but Cynthia Thompson, principal and founder of The Thompson HR Firm in Memphis and publisher and editor of HR Professionals Magazine, says that was widely expected.

“Every time we have an administration change in the White House, HR is turned upside down,” she says. “When the Democrats are in office, it’s employee-focused; when the Republicans are in office, it’s employer-focused. Everything is political, even though HR is apolitical. We have to keep in mind what’s happening on the political front.”

She says many of President Trump’s executive orders have had a significant impact on human resources departments at companies of all sizes and in industries across the board. To keep HR professionals up to speed on changes in policy, the Society for Human Resource Management hosts an annual employment law and legislation conference in Washington. This year’s conference will take place in March.

Closer to home, SHRM hosts state conferences and its Memphis chapter holds monthly meetings and quarterly executive roundtable meetings to keep members informed of changes in the local and state political landscape that will affect their organizations and employees in areas such as compensation, benefits, and employee relations.

Thompson says assistance with

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benefits is the most common concern employees bring to their companies’ HR departments.

“Employee benefits have become so complicated with the ACA, health care reform — it’s hard for anyone to understand and keep up and it’s overwhelming,” she says.

Most HR departments work with benefits consultants to come up with the best packages for their organization’s needs with the budget they have in place. An insurance broker’s job is to be an extension of the HR team. Benefits consultants educate companies about changes in areas like health care and 401(k) regulations.

“They can rely on us to do their research for them, so we can provide them with all that information,” says Hal Stansbury, director of business development with The Barnett Group, a Memphis-based benefits consulting firm. “They need to have third party people — whether they be payroll companies or insurance brokers keeping them up to date.

If they don’t have a good broker behind them they’re at a disadvantage for sure.”

When Thompson first entered the HR profession in 1977, most HR professionals were generalists, but increasingly complicated workplace scenarios and company liability have transformed the industry into one that today is largely comprised of specialists in areas such as compensation, benefits, employee relations, and data analytics. Certifications are available in many areas of spe-

cialization. However, HR profesplace dominating the headlines, with the #metoo movement and sionals at small businesses with fewer than 100 employees often entertainment industry heavy still need to be generalists. hitters such as Harvey Weinstein, Additionally, the education reTavis Smiley, and Matt Lauer acquirements for candidates have cused of sexual harassment. It’s become more demanding. shed light on the prevalence of “It used to be that you could workplace harassment and emcome through the back door like ployees who are often suffering I did, and they could teach you quietly for fear of retaliation.

HR, but that part has changed “Everyone is telling their stonow — t he ries now,” Thompprofession has son says. “We’ll progressed and remember 2017 as it’s very educa- “WHEN THE DEMOCRATS the year we took tional-orientnotice that sexual ARE IN OFFICE, HR IS ed now,” says must EMPLOYEE-FOCUSED; WHEN harassment Thompson, who be stopped.” in the 1970s was THE REPUBLICANS ARE IN She says that training to prorecruited inter- OFFICE, IT’S EMPLOYERtect employees nally by the HR from workplace department at FOCUSED. EVERYTHING IS predators was the bank where POLITICAL, EVEN THOUGH stunted by the she worked in HR IS APOLITICAL.” the loan office.

Great Recession SHRM-Memphis has a student when many HR professionals chapter for college students to were laid off, which decreased learn from and network with the numbers of HR workers and human resources professionals, limited the format of training offering them access to seversessions. al events throughout the aca“As a result, sexual harassment has been, for the most demic year with guest lectures, part, online training in many role-playing scenarios and more to prepare them for their careers. organizations, with people just “Human resources profesanswering multiple-choice and sionals are now also expected true-or-false questions, and you to be business professionals,” can take it over and over until Thompson says. “You used to inyou get it right,” Thompson says.

“That’s no substitute for face-toterview for an HR position and the interviewer wanted to be face training. It’s just too importsure you knew human resourcant to assign online training. We es. Now they want to be sure need to return to the face-to-face you’re a business professional. It training model.” helps tremendously to have an She says HR departments HR-specific degree but they’re must also contend with bullyalso looking for HR professionals ing, which often occurs elecwho have MBAs. They want to tronically and is perpetrated by know you have business acumen. both employees and employers.

Certification is also important.”

Although workplace harassThese young professionals are ment is nothing new, today’s entering a field that’s taken the technology provides proof. national spotlight recently, with “An employee will come into predatory behavior in the worktheir office with an email or a

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text message — a lot of harassment now is done by text,” she says. “And many newer managers don’t understand that you can’t text hourly employees after work hours. They’ll go into overtime.

And they’re just getting the monkey off their back, passing along assignments after work hours, and the employee will respond that it’s a form of bullying. You can’t do that to people outside of work hours. It’s inappropriate, but you see more of it because we’re doing everything electronically and people are trying to manage that way.”

Stansbury says social media monitoring is another concern for HR departments.

“No matter who you work for, nowadays you’re not just representing yourself on social media — you’re representing the company you work for,” he says.

“So, if I were to post something on Facebook that would be distasteful to some people, or bully somebody else, that’s grounds for termination because you’re a representative of who you work for. HR people having to monitor that can be quite a headache, I’m sure.”

Other recent issues center on drugs — namely the opioid epidemic and the legalization of medical marijuana. Employers must comply with drug-free workplace policies, and most drug test.

“When people are using marijuana medically, it poses a challenge for HR professionals and employers because employees can’t take it at work,” Thompson says. “There are ramifications, and it stays in your system. It’s causing a big issue in the HR world and we’re having to rely more on legal advice.”

Meanwhile, the national opioid epidemic spills into managing ben-

efits because many plans will no longer pay for those drugs. Then, employees are given substitute drugs that aren’t as effective, which affects productivity because the employees are experiencing pain-management issues.

“HR is a very tedious job,” says Stansbury. “And no matter how much technology advances, a lot of old-school HR people are saying computers are starting to take care of the work we have to do. But that’s never going to be the case because there’s just so much that an HR person has to cope with on a daily basis.”

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P O W E R

P L A Y E R S

Commercial Real Estate

The city’s Commercial Real Estate (CRE) market is constantly in flux. There is always a business considering relocating from one part of the city to another and new businesses looking for a location. CRE professionals are the ones businesses seek out to help them fi nd that perfect location for their needs. We asked: When it’s time for your office, retail, or industrial deal, who do you want brokering it? CRE development requires a different set of skills and a determination to take properties from seed to fruit, from inception to conclusion. Whether renovating properties, repurposing old spaces, or imagining the potential of undeveloped parcels and carrying out their vision, these POWER PLAYERS are the facilitators of growth in Memphis and its environs. They’re not just developing properties, they’re developing our business environment.

RONALD “RON” BELZ President and CEO, Belz Enterprises.

One of the largest commercial and industrial developers in the South.

Developments include more than 25 million square feet of property, including Shelby Oaks, Goodlett Farms, Appling Farms, The Peabody, Peabody Place, and numerous office and industrial parks.

Specializes in the development and management of industrial, retail, office, and residential properties across the country. Board member and vice chair, The Assisi Foundation.

PAUL BOYLE President, Boyle Investment Company. Graduate, Washington and Lee, New Memphis, and Leadership Memphis. Member, Chairman’s Circle, Greater Memphis Chamber. Advisory board member, Baptist Memorial Health Care. Board member, Urban Land Institute, Brooks Museum of Art. Executive Committee Member, Commercial Real Estate Owners’ Alliance. Former board member and treasurer, Hickory Hill Chapter, Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Memphis. Founder, West Institute for Cancer Research.

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DANNY BURING Managing partner, Memphis office, The Shopping Center Group, LLC. B.A., Psychology, University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Company provides full assortment of retail real estate advisory services to landlords, developers, investors, financial institutions, and retailers throughout the Eastern U.S. Notable clients include Fresh Market, Dick’s, Bed Bath & Beyond, Panera Bread, Chipotle, LA Fitness, and Fleming’s Steakhouse. Member, International Council of Shopping Centers. Board member, Memphis Light, Gas and Water, and Memphis Shelby Crime Commission. Received Pinnacle Award for Commercial Broker of the Year in 2004.

ANDY CATES CEO and President of Brokerage Services for Colliers International in Memphis. Recipient of the Colliers Everest Award and numerous Memphis Area Association of Realtors Pinnacle Awards, including Broker of the Year in 2012. Board member, Clean Memphis and the Memphis Chamber of Commerce. Co-Chair, Chamber’s Chairman’s Circle.

DARRELL T. COBBINS President and principal broker, Universal Commercial Real Estate, LLC. B.A., Rhodes; M.B.A., University of Memphis.

Chairman’s Circle/Board of Directors, Greater Memphis Chamber. Board of Directors, National Civil Rights Museum. 2013 Board Chairman, New Memphis Institute. Past Chairman, Memphis Light, Gas and Water. Recipient, 2011 Agent of Change Award, MULYP, and 2012 African American Male Image Award for Business, HobsonGoodlow Foundation.

JOHN ELKINGTON Chairman and CEO, Elkington Real Estate Group. Nationally known for development and stewardship of the Beale Street Historic District, the winner in a 2013 USA Today readers’ poll as “Most Iconic American Street.” Has been involved in the successful development of over 50 properties, including Lenox School in Midtown; Beachwalk Villas at Sandestin, Florida; and Union Station in Nashville. Recently served as a consultant for The Banks entertainment district in Cincinnati and Grand Center in St. Louis. Currently leading the development of 300 acres near Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and Red Square entertainment district in St. Louis. Member, Germantown Park Commission.

2015 Rotarian of the Year, Memphis Rotary Club.

THOMAS FARNSWORTH Partner, Farnsworth Investment Company and Holdings. Has been a real estate developer and investment builder for more than 40 years, building more than 10 million square feet in 60 warehouse buildings and 25 office buildings. Member, Society of Industrial and Office Realtors (SIOR).

Recipient, Memphis Area Association of Realtors Commercial Broker Lifetime Achievement Award, the Lambda Alpha International Excellence in Real Estate Lifetime Achievement Award, and Carnival Memphis Cook Halle Award, among others.

RICK FOGELMAN Chief Executive Officer, Fogelman Properties. B.S., Finance, University of Texas at Austin; M.B.A., University of Memphis. Responsible for establishment and implementation of the company’s overall business strategies. Owns/operates 85 multifamily communities totaling over 27,000 apartment homes throughout the Southeast, Southwest, and Midwest regions of the country. Board of directors, National Multi Housing Council. Past vice president, Tennessee Apartment Association.

Licensed real estate broker in Tennessee.

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STEVE GUINN Vice President, Highwoods Properties.

B.B.A., Baylor. Has more than 30 years’ experience in commercial real estate.

Received the Pinnacle Award’s Commercial Broker of the Year in 2009.

Certified Public Accountant and LEED Accredited Professional. Member, Society of Industrial and Office Realtors. Certified Commercial Investment member.

Member, Lambda Alpha International. Board member, Soulsville Foundation. Project board member, Shelby Farms Park Conservancy.

LAWRENCE “LARRY” JENSEN President and CEO, Cushman & Wakefield | Commercial Advisors. Represents and advises families, corporations, and institutions on real estate. Instrumental in Smith & Nephew’s acquisition of their orthopedics headquarters building.

Other clients have included FedEx, ServiceMaster, and AutoZone. Honors include 2005 Commercial Broker of the Year and 2008 Office Broker of the Year. Former president, Memphis Tomorrow. Board member, Shelby Farms Park Conservancy. Past chairman, Greater Memphis Chamber.

CARMA C. JUDE Portfolio manager, Healthcare Realty.

B.S., Business Management, Louisiana Tech University; M.B.A., Finance and Real Estate, University of Memphis.

Certified Commercial Investment member. Company is a publicly traded REIT that focuses on owning, managing, acquiring, and developing outpatient medical facilities throughout the U.S. Company owns seven properties totaling 516,000 square feet in Memphis. Clients include Baptist Memorial Health Care Corporation and numerous physician practices in the Mid-South.

MICHAEL A. LIGHTMAN Owner, Michael Lightman Realty Co., a regional leader in commercial property brokerage and land investment.

Developed Shelby Business Park, a 500,000-square-foot, high-end industrial park, Germantown’s Exeter Village, Centennial Place, the 230,000-square-foot South Lake Centre in Southaven, and multiscreen movie theater complexes for Malco Theatres. Recently expanded into the Nashville area. Recently completed work on Memphis’ Fieldstone Apartments, as well as the Centennial Gardens Apartments. Inducted into the Commercial Hall of Fame, Memphis Area Association of Realtors.

ROBERT “BOB” LOEB President, Loeb Properties, Inc. B.S. and M.B.A., Southern Methodist University. Portfolio of more than 2 million square feet of office, multifamily, and industrial space, including more than 100 retail properties in 50 |

Memphis noted for their architectural designs.

Current projects in Memphis include the redevelopment of Overton Square Theatre District, Broad Avenue Arts District, and University District revitalization. Trustee, Memphis University School and Memphis College of Art. Director, Playhouse on the Square and Neighborhood Preservation, Inc. Member, Overton Park Conservatory Board.

LEWIS K. MCKEE JR. Partner and Broker, McKee and McFarland, Inc. Full-service real estate firm actively engaged in the acquisition, development, management, and marketing of commercial and industrial properties. Has represented corporate clients including Prudential Insurance Company of America, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, Holly Farms Corporation, and Tyson Foods. Licensed Real Estate Broker in Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Missouri. Began career with Trammell Crow Company.

JEFF MORRIS President, Morris Auction Group and Morris Realty Group in Memphis; Luxury Estates Auction Group in Destin, Florida. Graduated from UT Martin and Worldwide College of Auctioneering. Supports many nonprofit organizations by providing live and silent auction services at fundraisers throughout the year. CAI and AARE certified. Tennessee Auctioneer Commission. Member, Tennessee Auctioneer Commission, Memphis Area Association of Realtors (MAAR), the National Auctioneers Association, and the Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas Auctioneer Associations. Elected president of NALLOA (National Auctioneer License Law Officials of America) in 2014.

JOSH POAG President and CEO, Poag Shopping Centers. B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University. Commercial real estate services include management, leasing, development, and acquisition of lifestyle centers. Notable clients include Tanger Outlets Southaven, Highland Row, Carriage Crossing, Graceland, and Poplar Collection. ISCSC and ULI certified. Chairman, Community LIFT. Former chairman, River City Capital. Lives with wife, Amy, and three daughters, Celia, Charlotte, and Alexandra.

GARY PROSTERMAN President and chief executive officer, Development Services Group, Inc. B.S., University of TennesseeKnoxville; Georgetown (Comparative Economics Systems).

Founder, Symbion in 1998. Projects include redevelopment of historic federal courthouse in Tampa into Le Meridien Hotel. Current projects

include adaptive reuse of major office buildings into hotels in downtown Houston and downtown Atlanta. Board member, Hapten Sciences, Inc., University of Tennessee College of Consumer Services, and Housing Foundation of West Tennessee.

FRANK QUINN Managing Director, CBRE. B.B.A., University of Mississippi. More than 30 years of successful commercial real estate brokerage experience. Market leader of the CBRE operations in Memphis and Jackson, Mississippi, overseeing leasing, sales, and management efforts for industrial, office, and retail brokerage. Graduate of New Memphis, member of Greater Memphis Chamber, and the Chamber’s Chairman’s Circle. Pinnacle Producer’s Club Life Member of Memphis’ commercial real estate awards. Past member of the University of Mississippi Real Estate Advisory Board.

EDWARD “EDDIE” SAIG President, NAI Saig Company, a full-service industrial, retail, and office brokerage firm. Has business degree from University of Arkansas.

Earned Pinnacle Award as the Highest Producing Commercial Real Estate Broker. Recently received the NAI Gold Club Award. Served as president of Memphis Chapter of Society of Industrial and Office Realtors (SIOR). Has SIOR and Counselor of Real Estate (CRE) designations.

Member, Lambda Alpha National Real Estate Chapter.

CHARLES H. SEVIER Chief manager and partner, Crump Commercial, LLC/CORFAC International. B.S. from Christian Brothers University; M.S. and M.B.A., University of Memphis.

Company has won six annual top industrial transaction awards from CORFAC International. Clients and projects have included Durham School Bus Services and Shearer Supply.

Former president of Society of Industrial and Office Realtors Memphis Chapter, former president of CCIM Memphis Chapter, and 2011 president of CORFAC International.

JOSEPH L. STEFFNER Senior vice president, Regional Managing Director, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank. Recipient, MAAR Pinnacle Award — 2015 Commercial Broker of the Year, 2013 Land Sales Broker of the Year, 2006 Office Sales Broker of the Year. Past president, Children’s Museum of Memphis, Carnival Memphis, MAAR, SIOR Memphis Chapter.

B.A., University of Tennessee; M.S., Real Estate Development; and M.B.A., University of Memphis.

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Family business has been doing it in style for 86 years.

David and Philip Gould

B Y

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Stylists at Gould’s Salon Spa have washed and coiffed millions of heads of hair in the 86 years since Sam Gould opened his first salon, yet no Gould has ever touched a strand of hair.

Instead, Gould and his sons, Philip and David, focused on building an iconic name in the local hairstyling and pampering industry that now employs 450 in its 11 salons, six full-service spas, and two education academies.

But even though it’s the largest hair and spa business in the area, don’t call it a “chain.”

“We don’t like the word ‘chain,’” says Philip Gould, who co-owns the “multistore, small business” with his younger brother, David.

“A chain is when you walk into one store and they look like all the others — a cookie-cutter like [national chains] Fantastic Sam’s or Supercuts.”

“We’re local. I buy local,” David says. “I buy local,” Philip echoes.

“We eat at Elwood’s Shack. We 52 |

go to Bryant’s Breakfast. We eat and shop as much as we can from local, independent operators. A lot of people do. It’s a source of pride.”

David insists on making an important distinction: “Our competitors like to say, ‘oh they’re corporate.’ No! We’re family. We’ve just got more than one location.”

The company opened the first Gould’s Academy in 2011 in Park Place Center. Over the next six years, more than 200 students graduated with training as styl-

ists or the various positions in the spa. The second academy opened in December in Bartlett to attract students who live in that part of Shelby County.

“We created schools so we could find people to hire,” Philip says. “As our salon and spa business continued to grow, we felt there was a need for better education in this market because we couldn’t get good stylists out of school,” Philip says. “They weren’t ready for us. We talked about it for some time and the opportunity presented itself.”

Sam Gould opened his first salon in 1932. He was an itinerant vaudeville drummer who returned home to settle down as the house drummer for the Orpheum Theater. That was his night job. He wanted something to do in the daytime like run a business.

Sam took a cosmetolog y

course but decided he wasn’t good at it, Philip says. Instead, he chose to operate a salon business and hire hairstylists.

In 1932, he opened a small beauty shop on the first f loor of the Parkview Hotel, now the Parkview Retirement Community. As business grew, he added

“WE EAT AND SHOP AS MUCH AS WE CAN FROM LOCAL, INDEPENDENT OPERATORS. A LOT OF PEOPLE DO. IT’S A SOURCE OF PRIDE.” a second location at Kimbrough Towers and then a third in Poplar Plaza. This location became the signature store and business headquarters. Sam wanted each location to have a distinctive feel and his wife, Lila — David and Philip’s mother — took

PHOTOGRAPH BY KAREN PULFER FOCHT

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that to heart. She operated the business with Sam and designed Gould’s Kon-Tiki salon across from the Raleigh Springs Mall. It was a Polynesian delight with stylists in muumuus and Hawaiian music playing.

The f loors were covered with artificial grass.

Sam Gould also found distinction in less colorful ways. He used the layout of the salons to distinguish them from each other and from traditional beauty salons. For instance, the main styling area at Poplar Plaza was circular with chairs and mirrors all around.

“No one had a round beauty shop before Gould’s,” says Gene Finney, a longtime Gould’s employee. “Everything about a Gould’s salon was top-class. Several of us men wore suits and ties to cut hair. Sam Gould was strict about certain things.”

Finney was a well-known stylist at the Julius Lewis department store in the 1950s when Gould lured him away. Finney was impressed with how well Gould ran a business. “He was all about customer service, Finney says. “The place was always neat and sanitary. Phones were answered on the first ring. His staff was always smiling and clean. We did everything possible to make our customers feel special.”

Some customers were special.

Priscilla Presley used to get her hair set at the Gould’s in Whitehaven. Back then, customers had separate areas so Mrs. Jones 54 |

didn’t know that Mrs. Smith was getting her hair colored, David explained. So, no one really knew that Priscilla was there.

“But then Elvis would drive up in a convertible and the beauty shop cleared out,” David says. “All these women in rollers and their hair in other states would run out in their capes to see him.”

Stylist Homer Gilleland, “Mr. Gill,” went to Graceland regularly to cut the King’s hair. Mr. Gill always swept up his mess.

No one noticed that the stylist took the hair clippings home where he kept them stowed in a sliced bread sack. After Mr. Gill died, his family sold the sack of Elvis’ hair.

Cybill Shepherd’s mother went into labor with her while getting her hair fixed at the Kimbrough Towers salon.

When he came to Memphis to perform, James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, had a hairdryer hauled into his room at The Peabody. His staff brought the chair back down the next day to the Gould’s Peabody salon. Brown signed the seat: “To my new friends at Gould’s. I feel good.

James Brown.”

Even though famous people were pampered at the salons, Gould expected the same type of service for each customer, a philosophy his sons maintain today. Phones are still answered on the first ring. No towels on the floor. No doo-dads or knickknacks at the workstations. No

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY GOULD’S

Gould’s Kon-Tiki salon, once across from Raleigh Springs Mall, was a Polynesian paradise with artificial grass on the floor and Hawaiian music being piped in.

mirrors filled with family photos shocked when they find out we’re stuck along the edges. No potato a Gould. They’ll say they didn’t chip bags. know there was a person named Gould.”

Hairdressers wear black But there always has been and smocks. Customers wear black capes. Shampoo bowls are glossy the Gould’s have long been savvy black. Workstations are black. about trends.

A revolution happened in the The hubbub from conversations and the whir of hairdryers end at 1960s when British hairstylist the doors to the spa. From there, Vidal Sassoon brought his scissoft music, dim lights and hushed sor-cut, blow-dried styles to conversations give way to pamAmerica. Gould jumped on it. pering from massages or beauty He brought the cutting-edge treatments. method of hairstyling to Mem“Spa day is a red-letter day,” phis in the basement of the PopPhilip says. “It’s a Christmas lar Plaza store. He called that present or Valentine’s Day salon Hairbenders to set it apart gift. It’s something special for from the typical salons. Clients a birthday. We have to make it would line up on the stairs waitto where they go home and tell ing to get their hair styled by their significant other what a some of the best hairdressers great gift that was. We have to in the Memphis area, which included Finney. give five-star service the minute they walk in the door.”

The new techniques eventually That’s the beauty of being in spread to all of the salons. The the hair and pampering business. brothers took ownership of the Everyone looks forward to getbusiness after their father died ting their hair done, David says. in 1994 at age 92. They continCustomers bring photos or pull ue his philosophy of staying on up pictures on their cellphones top of current hairstyling trends. of celebrities and ask their stylist They bring in consultants to hold to give them that cut. workshops and they send styl“Oh, Farrah,” David says. “Evists to conferences around the eryone wanted that Farrah Fawcountry. cett flyback haircut. Then the When the Internet began to Dorothy Hamill wedge, those impact commerce, they adaptlong Jennifer Aniston bangs.” ed. They created a website and And then there was the 1980s big later a phone app that lets cushair full of curly-permed, blowtomers book appointments, buy dried, heaps of hair that could gift cards, or summon an Uber. only find symmetry with broad There’s a full-time staffer dedpadded shoulders icated to social in every woman’s media. While they jacket. may have noticed a “YOU CANNOT GET Hairdresser Kardrop in the sales of some styling proden Mayes, who has A MASSAGE FROM worked at Gould’s AMAZON. YOU CANNOT ucts, they’ve comfor 35 years, says she pensated by creGET A HAIRCUT FROM doesn’t mind when ating and selling clients bring in pho- AMAZON. YOU CANNOT their own product tos because it gives GET YOUR HAIR lines exclusively in her an idea of what their stores.

COLORED ON AMAZON.” they are looking for.

B eyo nd t hat , “I try to gently tell them that perthey don’t worry about the Interson has thicker hair, the texture net eventually swallowing their is different,” Mayes says. “I try to industry. get something close.”

Philip says, “One thing we feel pretty good about is that And if a customer is ever dissatisfied they get a personal you cannot get a massage from phone call from David or Philip.

Amazon. You cannot get a hairSame if there’s a negative comcut from Amazon. You cannot ment left on social media.“Oh, get your hair colored on Amawe’re going to make it right,” Dazon. We just have to continue to keep our service level high vid says. “That’s part of customer service, though many of them are and keep our clients happy.”

INSIDE MEMPHIS BUSINESS.COM | FEBRUARY / MARCH 2018

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What’s UPTA?

Playhouse on the Square stages an annual national audition festival for actors and theater groups B Y

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Dance Call

In 2002, recent college graduates Michael Ingersoll and his girlfriend Angela Groeschen, who were interning with the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival, traveled to Memphis to audition for the city’s Unified Professional Theatre Auditions (UPTA).

Organized every February since 1995 by Playhouse on the Square, the only theater in Memphis with a resident company of professional actors, UPTA offers thespians an opportunity to audition for paid positions with quality theaters from around the country.

Through that audition process, they became part of the Playhouse family, where they first served as interns before becoming Playhouse on the Square company members for two years.

“We were so impressed with the operation, and the theater community there in Memphis,” says Ingersoll. He and Angela married in Memphis in 2005, and are now based in Chicago.

Less than a year after leaving Memphis, Michael was cast in the first national tour of Jersey Boys, playing Nick Massi of The Four Seasons 1,300 times over a three-year period. The show opened in San Francisco and ran for two years in the Windy City, and it led to appearances on Oprah and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Michael is now busy creating original projects, such as his group, “Under the Street Lamp,” which sings rock-and-roll, Mo56 |

town, and classic hits and has appeared on multiple national public television specials. He also produces PBS specials for other artists, including Angela, who in 2017 won Chicago’s prestigious Jeff Award for Best Leading Actress for her role as Judy Garland in End of the Rainbow.

The former Jersey Boy attributes much of his success to his three years in the Memphis theater community and his experience with UPTA — a hectic but highly organized event that’s been coordinated since its inception in 1995 by Playhouse on the Square associate producer Michael Detroit.

“To pull off something like UPTA is incredibly difficult,” Michael Ingersoll says. “A lot of people try, and a lot of people fail. It’s directly a result of Mike Detroit’s and [Playhouse Executive Producer] Jackie Nichols’ vision, and their tenacity and perseverance and the way that they create community. They draw people from all over the country and sustain it. I’ve never seen anything like what they pull off there. It’s unique, they should be incredibly proud, and it’s one of the greatest artistic accomplishments that the

Mid-South has produced.” cities with higher costs of living.

Detroit relocated from North“We wanted to make sure it was ern Michigan to Memphis in 1989 affordable,” he says. “As a not-forto become a resident company profit theater company who has member, and remains so after never run a deficit in 48 years, we were fully aware of what it would nearly three decades.

Conferences like UPTA are take to make sure we could keep what’s known in theater-speak costs low but cover our expenses.” as “combined auditions,” and UPTA offered lower registraalthough they take place in cittion fees, found sponsors to proies across the country, others vide complimentary food and primarily cater to summer-only snacks for actors, and struck deals actors. That wasn’t cutting it for with local hotels, transportation Playhouse on the Square, which companies, and other businesses needed actors for contracts last— also injecting money into the ing eight to 12 months. local economy.

“If they were going back to “We have good partnerships, so school in the fall, it didn’t do us there’s a sense of familiarity with any good,” Detroit said. each other to anticipate needs, overcome problems and keep He said Nichols, with the idea of creating a Memphis-based comcosts low,” Detroit says. “It’s doing bined audition event, a lot for Memphis on met with a handful the business side, as of theater compawell. We pay attennies from different tion to economic imparts of the country pact, and it’s nearly that, like Playhouse a million dollars of economic impact on the Square, had a over a four-day peneed for year-round professional compariod from folks from ny actors. all over the country Si nce D et roit coming to Memphis.

Michael Detroit had gained some It’s new money comconvention experience during ing in during a month that’s tradithe time he spent organizing a tionally been somewhat slow for college theater festival in Calconvention business.” ifornia, Nichols called on him The first UPTA convention in to harness that experience and February of 1995 attracted 200 fuse it with a new concept that auditioning actors and 25 theater would match professional actors companies. Today it averages more seeking steady work with compathan 1,000 actors over a four-day nies seeking steady professional period, and last year companies actors. came from about 40 states. In the In the summer and fall of 1994, past, companies have come from Detroit reached out to his netas far away as Argentina, Japan, work — locally and nationally and South Korea seeking talent.

— to begin gathering more conOver the years, Detroit has recrete ideas to bring the concept ceived a great deal of feedback to fruition. from companies and actors, which One barrier that posed a formihe’s used to streamline the event dable financial burden for both and improve the audition and callthe theater companies and the back process. Today UPTA is the actors attending other confercountry’s largest convention for ences was the numerous associprofessional actors. ated fees and expense to travel to “All of that is due to us paying

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY JOHN MOORE / PLAYHOUE ON THE SQUARE

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MARCH 22, 2018 University of Memphis, University Center

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The Junior League of Memphis welcomes all women to join us for our third annual community-focused, leadership conference— the Memphis Women’s Summit.

The summit will have four tracks based on your career level, with speakers covering a variety of topics impacting women today.

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ERIN BROCKOVICH A highlight of our breakout speakers: Kontji Anthony Vicki Clark Valentina Cochran Mearl Purvis Terri Freeman

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very close attention to what people want. If we can afford it, we’ve got the manpower, and if it makes sense, we’ll do it,” he says.

This year, UPTA happens February 2-5 at Playhouse on the Square, with companies from Alaska to Colorado, Minnesota to Maine descending on Memphis in search of top-notch professional thespians.

“It’s truly a national event — not just a regional event,” Detroit said.

Companies this year include the American Shakespeare Center of Staunton, Virginia; Disney Parks Live Entertainment in Buena Vista, Florida; Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee; Princess Cruise Lines of Santa Clarita, California; Rocky Mountain Repertory Theatre in Grand Lake, Colorado; and Memphis’ own Hattiloo — the region’s only freestanding Black repertory theater.

“WE PAY ATTENTION TO ECONOMIC IMPACT, AND UPTA BRINGS NEARLY A MILLION DOLLARS OF ECONOMIC IMPACT OVER A FOUR-DAY PERIOD FROM FOLKS FROM ALL OVER THE COUNTRY COMING TO MEMPHIS.” —MICHAEL DETROIT

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INSIDE MEMPHIS BUSINESS.COM | FEBRUARY / MARCH 2018

“It’s extremely diverse in terms of the types of companies that come, which is great for the actors and the designers,” Detroit says. “Some people are built to do cruise ships, but other people are not. Some people do Shakespeare, other people don’t.”

Auditions are open to pre-professional actors who have or will receive an undergraduate theater degree by fall of 2018, but they must be pre-screened through an audition video and available for year-round work.

Regular auditions are open to actors who have or will have a minimum of a master’s degree in theater by fall of 2018, are current members of Actors’ Equity Association, or have attended previous UPTA auditions.

Interviews are also held for technical, administrative, and artistic positions.

Actors get just 90 seconds on stage to impress company representatives from across the country in what Detroit described as American Idol meets a job fair. They spend a lot of time, effort and money to work on a 90-second job interview, so hopefully they get jobs from that.”

Heather Zurowski, a 23-year-old Illinois native and current intern at Playhouse on the Square, is among those vying for a professional job through UPTA. “It’s a pretty packed day of callbacks and auditions, and we’re all going for the same thing and have the same goal,” she says. “But it’s one of the most organized auditions. On some auditions you’re kind of blinded by what’s going on and you’re not really sure, but they [UPTA] do a really good job of keeping us informed.”

Finding the Right Professional Home Remodeler Remodeling your home can add safety, comfort, convenience and space to what can be the most valuable asset you own. It’s important to find the right remodeler for the job.

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The Office Bill Seely

Varsity Spirit

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When Jeff Webb dreamt up exciting new additions to cheerleading back in 1974, it proved to be the catalyst for a company that would change the face of the sport.

“He really came up with adding the partner stunts and athletic skills in cheerleading, the stuff you see today on ESPN,” says Bill Seely, the new president of Varsity Spirit. “That’s really the innovation he brought to the industry. He went to the owner of the National Cheerleaders Association at the time and brought those concepts to him, but he wasn’t interested.

Webb started working for the National Cheerleaders Association (NCA) right out of college on the camp side of the business.

When the owner didn’t bite on his new ideas, he planned to head back to law school. However, several instructors at the NCA saw promise in his ideas, so they branched off to create Universal Cheerleaders Association.

UCA’s first camp, in 1974, pulled in 5,000 kids. “Now, we’re up to 330,000 kids,” says Seely.

“We’ve got thousands of camps.

We’re the largest camp company of any kind in the world. We have representation all across the U.S., 2

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1. Braddock and Ox Streetcorner Photograph: “This photo was from when I decided to kind of take life significantly more seriously and more purposefully,” says Seely. “It was college, my junior year.”

2. Team Lacrosse Photo: We focused on fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. If you can’t catch and throw, you can’t play lacrosse. So we’d work on throwing and catching for hours out on the field. In terms of athleticism, you either have it or you don’t, so I let them be athletes out on the field and I taught them the fundamentals. Second year, they made the playoffs for the state. The first game of that year Houston beat us 111, and we ended up getting them in the play-in game. It went into double overtime, and then Houston went on to go to the state championship that year. The third year, we went to

over in Europe, and Japan. That helped us to create the international governing body for cheerleading, which got recognition from the Olympics.

What makes Varsity Spirit so successful is that it views itself as more than just a company in its field. Rather, as the leading business in the cheer industry, Varsity Spirit takes it upon itself to be an ambassador for the sport and help partner organizations. “We don’t view ourselves as just servicing a market, we care about the kids and the people who attend our events and our camps,” says Seely.

In turn, that positive attitude ex3

the final four and lost to Hutchison by six, which is the closest game Hutchison has had since that year, in state. That’s the class; my daughter is number four, and those are all a bunch of her good friends. She actually went on to play Division 1 lacrosse. She had a few offers, but she chose to go to Arkansas.”

3. World Championship Photos and Medal: “That’s a gold medal from the world championship,” says Seely, “which is held every year. 2009 was the first year we did that. Really over the last 15 years, cheerleading has gone from being in eight countries to over 107 countries.”

4. National Federation of High School Cheerleading Award: “The Federation recognized us as one of their key partners. It’s been a great way for us to leverage our experience and help grow the sport.”

tends to the sport of cheerleading, which Seely sees as a community building tool. “Cheerleaders right now, their primary role is building school spirit, really engaging the student body, and creating the environment that students will remember for a long time. This is a group that gets up in front of the crowd, engages them, and gets them going. They’re doing at least 20 hours of service-oriented activities for the schools. Hanging banners, pep rallies, football, basketball games, and so much more.”

Varsity Spirit also provided guidelines for the sport as it grew bigger. When injuries became more common after the introduction of more dangerous stunts and routines, Varsity created safety regulations to ensure that participants weren’t as exposed. It also started expanding it’s coaching and training services to ensure the best possible education for both instructors and other participants.

During the holiday season, the halls of Varsity Spirits office are decked out with Christmas decorations.

One factor for the positive environment might be that almost every employee at Varsity is a former cheerleader, or has worked in the sport in some capacity. That helps the company reach the scope it wants to attain, with influence in almost every capacity of the industry. Some employees are sent out as instructors for camps, while others help with Varsity’s philanthropic outreach. One section is dedicated to maintaining relationships with colleges and universities so Varsity can better help out with national competitions and stay more involved at ground level with teams around the country.

Another factor might be the positive attitude that Seely puts

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5. Graphic Design Department: Varsity Spirit’s graphic design group’s office space was recently renovated. Over the holidays, the team worked on a fundraising partnership with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. “We have a program called Friday Nights with St. Jude. We activate at the schools and help teach them how to do that at camp. We just launched this program last year, so we’re looking to kick off the new year with a challenge to raise enough money to pay for half a day.”

6. Second Floor Landing: Many of the executive offices are on the second floor. Efforts are underway to renovate offices for new employees, while former president Jeff Webb still has an office space set aside for him.

forth on a daily basis. As someone who grew up with the sport, he has a personal stake in watching it grow and helping it become the best it can be. He began his career at Varsity in 1989 while a sports management major at George Mason University in Washington, D.C. At that time, there were plenty of options for a career. However, two classmates convinced him to try cheerleading, and from there, his path was set. “The school required an internship for credits, so I had the choice between a few companies: the Boston Celtics, Nike, and Varsity Spirit. Nike was huge, and I loved the Celtics, but 62 |

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I thought about what I’d be doing and the path forward from there, and I wasn’t sure that was something I’d want to do on a regular basis. At the time, Varsity was really small, and I knew I’d be able to interact with the founder and senior level executives.” Seely moved to Memphis to work with Varsity. As the internship wound to a close, he was prepared to jump back into the job hunt. However, Greg Webb, the founder’s brother, told Seely that he wouldn’t need a resume, and offered him a fulltime job. From every step along the way from camp instructor to president, Seely has fully em-

braced the work he’s doing. “I love the company, love the culture, the whole family-oriented, customer-focused vibe with an eye on making more of a positive impact on the community through what we do. That’s what drew me here in the first place.”

Going forward, Varsity plans to continue its service to the greater cheer community. A big development is a new venture with Disney, with whom Varsity has been collaborating for around 25 years. “They’re getting ready to build a whole new facility for us. It’s the first building of its kind being built

specifically for cheerleading and dance.” On another front, Varsity is helping to pioneer a new sporting offshoot of cheerleading called Stunt. Teams go head-to-head in four quarters of competing skill sequences while coaches attempt to outmaneuver each other. It provides yet another competition for those with cheerleading backgrounds, and is yet another example of how Varsity Spirit can grow the sport of cheerleading. With the growth it’s presided over since the 70’s, you’d be hard pressed to find a better cheer ambassador than Varsity Spirit.

INSIDE MEMPHIS BUSINESS.COM | FEBRUARY / MARCH 2018

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PEOPLE LOVE MAGAZINES.

T H E

A R C H I V E S

Julius Lewis

His enduring legacy in the world of retail.

• • •

B Y

VA N C E

L A U D E R D A L E

Julius Lewis wasn’t the founder of the department store that Memphians remember fondly.

That credit goes to Moses Lewis, born in Germany in 1850, who journeyed to Memphis and opened a one-room dry-goods store on North Main Street. Around 1900, he moved to a much busier part of town — Beale Street — where he opened the curiously named New York Bankrupt Store.

It’s hard to believe such a business would survive. Who would admit to their friends their clothes came from the New York Bankrupt Store? So patrons began to call it simply Lewis’ and — as Moses’ children got involved — the name changed to Lewis & Sons.

Moses Lewis passed away in 1924, and those two sons, Julius and Samuel, kept the business humming for another decade, when the elder son took over the firm and moved it back to Main Street, into a much larger store at 145 South Main. That store, along with the other department stores nearby, made Main Street the place to be — and shop — in the 1940s.

But it was the 1950s that saw the Lewis brand move into new territory.

On March 12, 1951, Julius Lewis handed his 9-year-old

granddaughter, Judith Brenner, a solid-gold key encrusted with diamonds to unlock the doors to the brand-new Julius Lewis store at 1460 Union. Reporters and dignitaries were enthralled by the building, with the Memphis Press-Scimitar calling it “truly a beautiful store, the very last word in modern design.”

Another reporter observed that “the interior would have qualified as a major florist show,” noting “$15,000 of flowers, each display a study in beauty and originality.”

Although the store appeared to be just one story, a mezzanine level inside held more departments, a spacious lounge, tailor shops, alteration rooms, and a beauty salon.

Even Mayor Watkins Overton, who attended the grand opening, was dazzled by it all, telling the newspapers that he had to keep looking out the door “to make sure this really was in Memphis.”

Adding to the appeal was a rather quirky touch: The store employed twins Mildred and Margaret Poole, who worked together in the same department. “A man who came in to exchange a tie often was confused to find the salesg irl did n’t rememb er h i m from five minutes before,” observed a reporter, “until her double walked up.”

Just five years later, Julius Lewis opened another store, this one back downtown at Main and Gayoso. Though consider-

ably smaller than the midtown branch, the new store presented the same ultra-modern exterior that was a hallmark of the company. This came as no surprise, apparently, to newspaper reporters, who noted, “Those who know Julius Lewis know he would build a fine store, comparable to his new store at 1460 Union, which is one of the show places of Memphis.”

Jack Lewis, grandson of founder Moses, took over the company when his father, Julius, retired and continued its expansion, opening a five-story building in Eastgate Shopping Center.

But then something happened — the same fate that affected other family-owned “big name” stores in Memphis. Shoppers wanted something new, perhaps drawn away by the sprawling shopping malls. Goldsmith’s, Lowenstein’s, Bry’s, Gerber — struggled to survive and, one by one, they failed and closed.

Julius Lewis shuttered its Main Street store and rented space at Eastgate to other businesses (including a Quality Stamp redemption center). When 1983 headlines announced, “Julius Lewis Seeks Help From Bankruptcy Court,” even the die-hard customers realized the end was near. New owners, including family members, tried to keep the company alive, but it was too late.

Julius Lewis finally closed its beautiful store on Union, the one our own mayor couldn’t believe was in Memphis. The building has survived, its striking exterior relatively unchanged, but it’s now home to OfficeMax.

Top: A portrait of founder Moses Lewis. Middle, L-R: Mayor Watkins Overton (left) attending the 1951 ribbon-cutting, and twins Mildred and Margaret Poole. Bottom, L-R: The Main Street location in the 1950s, Julius Lewis (left) inside the main store on Union, and “the very last word in modern design” — the Julius Lewis store at 1460 Union Avenue.

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PHOTOS COURTESY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS LIBRARIES

F R O M

INSIDE MEMPHIS BUSINESS.COM | FEBRUARY / MARCH 2018

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Miles Mason Sr., JD, CPA Husband, father and divorce lawyer. A nationally recognized speaker on divorce trial practice, forensic accounting and business valuation. Author of four books on divorce, including “The Forensic Accounting Deskbook,” published by the ABA Family Law Section, and “The Tennessee Divorce Client’s Handbook.” All four are available on Amazon.

Leadership positions include past chair of the TBA Family Law Section, past president of the Christian Brothers High School Alumni Association and a fellow of the Memphis Bar Foundation. Mason began MemphisDivorce. com, a comprehensive, online resource for Tennessee divorce law, in 1996.

Miles Mason Family Law Group, PLC (901) 683-1850 memphisdivorce.com

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