Nashville Post Fall 2021 by FW Publishing

FALL 2021

FILLING IN THE BLANKS NASHVILLE’S BUILDING BOOM BRINGS WITH IT NEW QUESTIONS AND IDEAS

SOUND CHECK

URGENCY, PATIENCE

OUT OF NECESSIT Y

A slew of live music venues prepares to open

2021’s Most Powerful Women on growth, leading by serving

TennCare’s claims denial process is among the country’s strictest

T H E O N TA R I O N A S H V I L L E . C O M NEW development project off Lebanon Pike. The Ontario offers studio, 1- and 2- bedroom flats and 2- and 3- bedroom townhomes just 2.5 miles to the offerings of downtown Nashville. Presale now, arriving Spring 2022.

HIGHVIEWNASHVILLE.COM

Perched hillside at the northeastern border of Highland Heights in East Nashville. 88 urban flats offering studio, 1- and 2- bedroom plans. Only five minutes to Inglewood’s Riverside Village, Gallatin Corridor, and a short 10-minute commute to popular 5 Points and downtown Nashville.

E D I S O N PA R K N A S H V I L L E . C O M

Centrally located in The Nations neighborhood, one of the hottest and fastest growing in Nashville, are 80 townhomes and flats with modern industrial styling, open floor plans, abundant natural light, and beautiful designer finishes.

Pictured above: Mark Deutschmann, Newell Anderson, Danielle Helling, Crystal Atkinson, Caroline Dean, Callie Hughes, Deborah Vahle, Anna Dorris, Devin Mueller, Giovanna Burchell, Maggie K. Hall, Latina Davis, Shelbi Aimonetti

H E L P I N G Y O U F I N D VA L U E I N N A S H V I L L E R E A L E S TAT E

615 383 6964 | NashvilleCityLiving.com

FALL 2021

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4 YOU SHOULD KNOW

Bryan Frist drives contactless fueling, service company Yoshi

8 OFFICE HOME

Developers, architects embrace designs suitable for live-work

10 MILLION DOLL AR QUESTION

With corporations gobbling up homes, how will local market be impacted?

13 INTEGRATED SPACES A denser city deserves developers, architects focused on connections, innovations

16 EVOLVING PRINCIPLES

Almost 20 years after publishing The Plan of Nashville, design center revisits core ideas

18 FUTURE FOCUS How architects are dealing with a changing environment

LEADERS

25 MOST POWERFUL WOMEN

43 ‘IDEAL INCUBATOR’

Our all-star group on leadership advice, growth and mentoring

35 GREATER GIVING

Key philanthropic players talk trends, lessons learned during pandemic

A look at the goals, next steps for Belmont’s $60M data programs push

44 AGGREGATING ANALY TICS

Startup aims to be central cog in fast-growing sports data market

VITALS FAVORITES

38 OUT OF NECESSIT Y

TennCare’s claims denial process is far stricter than the national average’s

21 SWINGING OPEN THE DOORS

40 POWER IN NUMBERS

New venues add wrinkle to live music’s pandemic recovery work

TECHIE

47 SEEKING THE SPOOKY

Copper Branch’s Charles Spence gets ‘haunted’ on ghost tours

Complex rehab tech companies are growing — and seeking insurers’ buy-in

NASHVILLEPOST.COM | FALL 2021

OPEN

Change is constant There’s no missing the signs of Greater Nashville’s continued growth. Suburbs are still sprouting subdivisions, infill projects are still reinventing in-town neighborhoods and — most obviously — the city’s core is growing ever denser and taller. From Midtown to River North and Nashville Yards to Rutledge Hill, developers are going big at a dizzying pace. In this issue’s cover package, we’ve tried to envision how their work will further reshape the city in the near future. It was an exercise prompted by some daydreaming about plans proposed but never carried out — remember HCA’s vision of a new HQ where 505 now stands? — that led us to, along with the illustrations, seek to discuss some of the questions this rapid development brings with it. There’s a lot more ground to cover on this topic but it’s encouraging to hear design pros talk about developers “getting it” when it comes to smart design and making their projects work as part of a healthy whole. Elsewhere on the idea of change, we have: • taken a closer look at how the live music business is rebounding and preparing to grow coming out of the pandemic, • talked with our Most Powerful Women honorees about how they’ve grown during their careers and during the pandemic, and • looked under the hood of TennCare’s medical appeals process, which has gone through many changes over the years but has consistently been one of the most restrictive of its kind in the country. Change can be very personal, too. With the publication of this quarterly, I am saying goodbye to the Post after more than 13 years and bursts of growth even more rapid than the city’s. Moving on to a new opportunity after such a stint is bittersweet, with the bitterest taste stemming from saying goodbye to a terrific team of writers, editors and designers — at the Post and our sister publications. They have on countless occasions inspired me, challenged me to be better and made me laugh in equal measure and I will miss them immensely. One of the top items on my to-do list for the first day after I leave is to buy a subscription to the Post. I know I’ll be missing all the good stuff if I don’t. If you’re reading this magazine and haven’t yet signed up for our twice-daily emails, I hope you’ll join me in subscribing and supporting great work from even greater people. Geert De Lombaerde, Editor

editorial EDITOR Geert De Lombaerde MANAGING EDITOR William Williams STAFF WRITERS Cedric Dent Jr., Stephen Elliott, Nancy Floyd, Michael Gallagher, Kara Hartnett, Kathryn Rickmeyer CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Megan Seling, Austin Wright

art & production ART DIRECTOR Christie Passarello STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS Eric England, Daniel Meigs GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Mary Louise Meadors, Tracey Starck

publishing PUBLISHER Heather Cantrell Mullins ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS CONSULTANTS Olivia Bellon, Maggie Bond, Sue Falls, Jennifer Trsinar Jezewski, Michael Jezewski, Carla Mathis, Will Shutes, Mike Smith, Niki Tyree, Keith Wright SALES OPERATIONS MANAGER Chelon Hill Hasty ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS ASSOCIATES Caroline Poole, Aya Robinson, Alissa Wetzel

events EVENTS DIRECTOR Olivia Moye Britton

circulation CIRCUL ATION AND SUBSCRIPTION DIRECTOR Gary Minnis

business PRESIDENT Frank Daniels III CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Todd Patton PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Elizabeth Jones IT DIRECTOR John Schaeffer SPECIAL PROJECTS COORDINATOR Susan Torregrossa

FW Publishing, LLC On the cover Illustration by Lee Ferris

OWNER Bill Freeman 210 12th Ave. S., Suite 100 Nashville, TN 37203 nashvillepost.com

Nashville Post is published quarterly by FW Publishing, LLC. For advertising information, call Heather Cantrell Mullins at 615-844-9252. For subscription information, call 615-844-9307. Copyright © 2021 FW Publishing, LLC.

FALL 2021 | NASHVILLEPOST.COM

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YOU SHOULD KNOW

Bryan Frist Yoshi co-founder seeks to ‘keep moving’ with contactless vehicle fueling and service company BY WILLIAM WILLIAMS

ryan Frist is a man on the move. And regarding the “on the move” theme, so, too, is Yoshi, the contactless vehicle fueling and service company Frist co-founded in 2015 with Nick Alexander and Dan Hunter. Frist and his colleagues in January relocated Yohsi — a Japanese word that roughly translates into “keep moving”— to Nashville from California so as to build upon some serious momentum. Example? To date, the company has raised more than $36 million, with GM Ventures and ExxonMobil having spearheaded Series A and Series B fundraising rounds. Other investors include NBA All-Star Kevin Durant, former NFL player Joe Montana and Y Combinator in Silicon Valley. “We are devoting recent investments towards continued innovation and expansion, in order to create even more convenience for our customers,” Frist says. “We are also hiring across all areas of the business.” Frist has been well prepared to be an entrepreneur. Prior to co-founding Yoshi, he was involved in launching international hospital company Chinaco Healthcare Corp. in China. “I was the first American on the ground and was focused primarily on project management and building out the leadership team,” he says. “I learned how to take a vision and turn it into reality amidst lots of unknowns. I also learned how important it is to find good people and put them in positions of authority so that they can execute on the vision.”

FALL 2021 | NASHVILLEPOST.COM

As noted, Yoshi provides contactless services by delivering fuel and car care to its customers’ vehicles. Founded as a direct-to-consumer refueling business, the company has since expanded the service menu with light maintenance, car washes, detailing and oil changes. It also now offers its services to fleet and corporate customers as it continues to expand its business portfolio nationally. Frist says a key reason for starting Yoshi was the realization that “no one enjoys going to the gas station.” When he, Alexander and

Hunter founded the company six years ago, they wanted to create a customer experience and a distinctive brand. “Having a unique name — one that sticks and that people remember — has been a big part of that,” he says. As to the fee structure — the Yoshi app is compatible with iOS and Android devices — new customers get a 30-day free trial, paying only for fuel and services. If satisfied, they then can choose between a $20 per month or a $192 per year membership, which covers all

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‘Having a unique name — one that sticks and that people remember — has been a big part of [being distinct].’

delivery fees and matches their gas prices to the lowest Top Tier prices found at nearby gas stations. There is a $7 delivery fee for customers who prefer a pay-as-you go option. Frist says that when users download the Yoshi app, they will get the lowest priced Top Tier gas (Top Tier detergent gasoline and diesel fuel are performance specifications and trademarks designed and supported by several major automakers) within a two-mile radius of their respective fill-up locations. “We search for the lowest prices so that you don’t have to,” he notes. “This means you get the best quality gasoline delivered to your vehicle at the lowest price. On top of that, when our customers use our additional services, they also earn gas discounts.” Frist says “hundreds of thousands” of customers have already downloaded and registered their vehicles with Yoshi. Even customers outside of a Yoshi service area can benefit from personalized vehicle updates — including vehicle recall alerts and mileage tracking. In addition to its consumer customer base, Yoshi provides dedicated service

to fleet and corporate partners at large office parks and parking lots across the country. Pricing and custom service plans are tailored based on the sizes and needs of the organizations. Not surprisingly, insurance, safety and environmental efficiency are major considerations. Frist says the company has comprehensive insurance in place that is tailored to meet and surpass all of its corporate clients’ requirements. In addition, each truck has been designed and built in-house by the Yoshi hardware team. The current version has been through multiple design generations with the primary focus on safety. “These are not tank vehicles; they are customized passenger pickup trucks with proprietary skid designs in their beds,” he says. Frist says running a start-up continues to be “a thrill.” “Building out a great team and trusting them to execute is key to our success,” he says. “I’m really proud of the diverse team that we’ve put together. We’re diverse in terms of gender, ethnicity, experience, education and expertise. This diversity is one of our greatest strengths.”

NASHVILLE | CHATTANOOGA | KNOXVILLE | CHARLOTTE

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Get to know our family of companies

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Data Bank BY NE ARLY EVERY M ETRI C — yes, that includes the number of construction cranes still dotting the skyline — the Nashville economy is bouncing back solidly from the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic. There’s still a lot of ground to make up, though, particularly in the labor market. But the real estate and development sector is playing its part in the recovery.

DRIVEN BY DEMAND Investors pumped $901 million into Nashville-area industrial properties in 2020, up from less than $800 million in 2019. They have followed that up with $520 million worth of deals in the first half of 2021. That activity and the underlying demand have helped push up asking rents per square foot in a big way in recent years.

$3.70

$5.39

$6.55

2014

2017

2021*

* As of June 30 Source: Avison Young Nashville

ROARING BACK A 22-component commercial real estate index compiled by Newmark Research puts Nashville near the top when it comes to recovering from the pandemic. Middle Tennessee scores particularly well in the overall economic picture and retail metrics and as a destination for capital. Here’s the overall top 10, which is dominated by Sun Belt cities. 1. Tampa 2. Dallas 3. Nashville 4. Phoenix 5. Atlanta 6. St. Louis 7. Miami 8. Houston 9. Boston 10. Philadelphia Source: Newmark

STILL STRUGGLING The hospitality sector took massive hits from COVID and is, not surprisingly, recovering more slowly than the overall economy. Tennessee hotels are forecast to employ 5,600 fewer people at the end of 2021 than in 2019. Here’s how that compares to neighboring states.

PRICING PRESSURE That recovery is putting pressure on builders, particularly on the labor components of the equation. Nashville is among the most expensive markets for construction spending per worker.

Alabama -3.3% Arkansas -8.3% Kentucky -8.4% Mississippi -9.6% North Carolina

-12.1%

Missouri -12.8% Tennessee -13.3% South Carolina

-14.9%

Georgia -16.2% Source: Oxford Economics for the American Hotel & Lodging Association

FALL 2021 | NASHVILLEPOST.COM

1. Austin 2. Nashville 3. Raleigh 4. Phoenix 5. Charlotte 6. Jacksonville 7. Orlando 8. Dallas 9. Tucson 10. Tampa

$160,551 $150,372 $122,805 $104,360 $101,366 $96,043 $94,078 $90,848 $89.500 $88,532

Source: Construction Coverage

SIX DECADES OF DESIGN. CORNERSTONES FOR THE FUTURE. As we mark 60 years of architectural experience, we reflect on those projects that are contributing to our city’s landscape and character. Healthcare facilities. Hospitality venues. Education campuses. Corporate and Commercial facilities. Senior Living. Community and the Arts venues. We feel fortunate for our past opportunities and eagerly look forward to what the next 60 years will bring.

Moving forward together to create environments that shape lives. architecture interior architecture master planning space planning

615-329-9445 www.esarch.com

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Home is where the office is Developers, architects embrace designs suitable for live-work BY WILLIAM WILLIAMS

orking from home has long been common. But the COVID-19 pandemic has elevated the concept in a noteworthy manner — such that developers of apartment and condominium buildings are incorporating office spaces into their buildings and even within units of those structures. Gina Emmanuel, a principal with Nashville-based Centric Architecture, says that almost all the multi-unit residential buildings with which the company is involved will offer units featuring both small working nooks suitable for one person (including a desk area and door that can be closed to limit interruptions) and small individual offices within the units.

FALL 2021 | NASHVILLEPOST.COM

“In addition, we have several residential projects that have a co-working space both as a part of the amenity area and small leasable offices for both residents and those that do not live within the building,” Emmanuel says. “These have been wildly popular and often can share amenities such as fitness, pool, roof decks and access to community outdoor space that may not be available in a more typical office environment.” Shawn Bailes, founder of FBMC Investments and president and CEO of Capital City Construction, says that with Nashville housing prices soaring, “smaller and more flexible spaces are in demand now more than ever.” Bailes developed the Wedgewood-Houston site home to rental complex 83 Freight. “The units offer extremely flexible spaces,” Bailes says. “The studio units at 320 square feet have Murphy Beds, allowing residents to work during the day and stretch out at night.” Many live-work space units tend to be “smallish” and, as such, often command greater prices per square foot than larger spaces. “With regards to the smaller space phenomena, I have referred to it as the ‘half-loafof-bread’ theory,” Bailes said. “Grocery stores now offer a half loaf of bread; however, the price is not half [that] of a full loaf of bread. It is up to 75 percent of the price. We incorporated this theory by offering smaller office

spaces in our West Grove mixed-use building (near 12South), as well as our studio residential units at 83 Freight. There is a market that doesn’t need a lot of space and is willing to pay a ‘higher than a slice price’ to have space that fits their needs so well.” Sunnymeade Commons, a 28-townhome Inglewood project pictured above, has been designed to emphasize live-work theme options. Clay Haynes, principal and owner of Public Square (which is partnering with Open Works on the East Nashville project) said the living spaces have been designed intentionally to consider the “new work-from-home environment.” For example — and given working from home generates greater electricity consumption than otherwise — the Sunnymeade units will exceed the required energy code standards. Centric’s Emmanuel said many design features related to the live-work concept were being undertaken by architects and developers pre-pandemic and have proven to be doubly beneficial as the past 18 months have unfolded. “The entities we partner with have noted for quite some time that they wish to have their communities provide the ability for a flexible lifestyle — whether it be working at home full time or having the convenience to be home for a few hours when needed,” she said. “The pandemic has just reinforced how valuable this can be.”

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The milliondollar question Corporations are gobbling up Nashville homes and building new ones. What does it mean for the local housing market? BY STEPHEN ELLIOTT

uying a house in Nashville is not easy right now. Those circumstances are not confined to Middle Tennessee, and they cannot be blamed on any one thing. Lumber and other supply materials costs have skyrocketed in the past year and a half, in part because of supply-chain logjams. New construction has both slowed and become more expensive due to those factors and a labor crunch. Compounding forces have created a situation where homes are snatched up hours after they come on the market and owners who would otherwise be looking to sell are holding off for fear that they won’t be able to find somewhere else to live. But a relatively new phenomenon — especially in Nashville and other similarly hot markets in the Southeast and Southwest — also is contributing to the crunch. Corporations such as American Homes 4 Rent, many of them founded in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and housing bust, are gobbling up single-family homes — and even building entire neighborhoods of them — exclusively for the purpose of renting them, rather than selling them, to residents. American Homes 4 Rent, founded in 2012, owned nearly 3,000 single-family homes in the Nashville area at the end of 2020. Earlier this summer, one single-family rental operator sold more than 1,000 homes in Nashville and Atlanta to a peer in a $300 million deal. And the numbers are rising.

FALL 2021 | NASHVILLEPOST.COM

“There’s truly not much of an end in sight,” says Bruce McNeilage, a local developer who rents out about 70 homes, mostly in Williamson and Maury counties. McNeilage first started building, buying and renting out single-family homes in the mid-2000s, “before it was even an industry.” Now, he’s a smaller player in the growing space and has bought and sold from the larger companies while also at times competing against them for renters. Does the companies’ focus on Nashville hurt potential local homebuyers? “100 percent,” he says. That’s because these companies, some publicly traded and some backed by private-equity millions, have the ability to close on a home almost immediately and without conditions. It’s a best-case scenario for a seller. “They don’t have any mortgage contingencies. They don’t have an appraisal. They don’t have an inspection,” he says. “They pay all cash and can close in a few weeks. You don’t need

to paint, carpet, clean out. They’ll take care of everything. They’re a very attractive buyer to a seller, and yes they certainly are beating out the general public.” Still, McNeilage says, the new focus is actually helping people find housing, even if they can’t own it. “In essence, there are more houses available because we are creating them ourselves,” he says. “I don’t think we’re hurting people. We’re helping people.” Local real estate brokers, even those who occasionally work with investors, see it differently. They, of course, are incentivized to encourage home ownership over renting. Brian Copeland, a broker and president of Greater Nashville Realtors, says that the large corporate acquisitions of single-family homes makes it significantly harder for buyers looking for something affordable. “When you’re working with a normal retail buyer, there’s emotions involved in it. They’re looking through selections, the color of the cabi-

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nets, the color of the countertops, the flow of the floorplan,” he says. “When you’re working with a corporation, they’re just looking at, ‘What’s the cash flow? What can we rent this for?’” In the past six months, Copeland says, the supply of homes for sale has been especially low. In Madison, one home was listed for $639,000 and a broker who offered $750,000 did not secure it. He recently represented a buyer — a small-time investor — who bought a home in Greenbrier for more than $10,000 over asking price. Such anecdotes aren’t confined to certain areas of Middle Tennessee. Communities as varied as Inglewood, Mt. Juliet and Spring Hill are seeing the most frantic activity, with homes there on the market a few days — or mere hours. “We used to calculate in weeks,” Copeland says. “We’re not doing that now.” Available homes to buy are important to the local economy and local residents, he says, because it allows people to create generational wealth. It’s also an attractive feature to companies like Oracle or Amazon, who are asking

some of their employees to move to Nashville from other cities or seeking to hire people locally — all people who need somewhere to live. “We never want to become a nation of renters because owning a home creates that generational wealth,” he says. “We’re not just looking at the short term of not getting a home. We’re looking at the long-term wealth for their grandkids and beyond.” Too often, The Housing Fund President and CEO Marshall Crawford says, nonwhite communities have been excluded from accessing that generational wealth. Nationwide, home ownership rates among Hispanic and Black people have hovered at or below 50 percent, while rates among white people range between 70 and 80 percent. There are a lot of reasons for that disparity, historical redlining most prominent among them, but Crawford thinks the influx of outside capital into the Nashville housing market could reinforce it. “The lack of supply of housing at the price points for the average working family makes

it difficult for African-American and Hispanic families to achieve home ownership without some type of assistance,” he says. “The demand is enormous on achieving home ownership, so when you have that high demand, those individuals that are going to be able to achieve it are those that have the immediate resources.” Like Copeland, Crawford thinks it’s important for families to own homes. Doing so creates wealth they can pass down but also, he says, it can stabilize families. The Housing Fund, a public-private partnership, helps Nashvillians with down payments, among other efforts at boosting access to home ownership, in part with the help of funding of local employers such as Amazon. He does not dispute that the single-family rental companies are creating new housing stock, but he still has questions. “It does increase the housing stock. The question we have to ask ourselves is is it creating enough affordable housing stock that all income levels are able to take advantage of,” he says. “That’s the million-dollar question.”

Left to Right: AUSTIN RISSLER, JEFF ECKINGER, DAVID BERTANI, BRIDGET ZIEGLER, TOM FEENEY, JACKLYN CLAIRE, ROSS FLOREY, JONATHAN GODFREY, KENNY CRAPSE, ADAM MCKONE, JON LONG, DAMIEN TODD, CLAY RISINGER, SCHMALZRIED, ANNIE SCHMALZRIED Team members missing: DAVID BRIGGS, HOUSTON BROWN, NATHAN COPELAND, JAY DHAKAL, JERRY GREENE, SAMUEL HARRIS, REBECCA HETZER, JP HICKEY, THOMAS KILCREASE, RYAN SULLIVAN

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FILLING IN THE BLANKS Nashville’s building boom brings with it new questions and ideas

Even the most optimistic observers of Nashville real estate wouldn’t have predicted the speed of recent development in SoBro and the ever-growing Gulch area. Growth many had considered might require a generation or more has taken less than a decade. And broad, long-term guiding documents have essentially turned into draft blueprints for dozens of apartment blocks and office and hotel towers. On the next few pages, we’ve taken a little license to extrapolate today’s trends and revisit past proposals that haven’t (yet?) made it to groundbreaking. The result is a view into the downtown Nashville of the near future, a much more continuous urban mass whose parts will be more interwoven than ever before. To go with our sketches, we’ve asked some industry pros a few big questions about how this denser, more connected district might — and should — function.

ILLUSTRATION BY LEE FERRIS

NASHVILLEPOST.COM | FALL 2021

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THE GULCH

ommuters along the downtown interstate loop can’t miss the activity at the southern tip of The Gulch. Where Terrazzo sat somewhat alone south of Division Street for years now are rising multiple towers that hug the highway. Across Division from them, multiple sites that previously housed single-story structures sport or will soon have their own cranes. To the northwest, meanwhile, Gulch master developer MarketStreet Enterprises still has a handful of spots to redevelop in the heart of the district, including the southeast corner of the prominent intersection of 12th and Demonbreun.

FALL 2021 | NASHVILLEPOST.COM

On the heels of the building of the “core” Gulch and Capitol View further north has come a phase — led in part by Gulch Crossing and being continued by Asurion’s new headquarters — of building right up the CSX train tracks. Nashville Yards’ towers are adding to that momentum and a similar set of towers could rise in front of Cummins Station: Owner Zach Liff in 2019 went public with sketches of four towers wedged along the tracks from Demonbreun to Cannery Row. We haven’t been as ambitious here as Liff’s vision was then but the basic idea is the same: Much of CSX trains’ journeys through downtown Nashville will soon be in a veritable concrete canyon.

ILLUSTRATION BY LEE FERRIS

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INTEGRATED SPACES A BOOMING, DENSER CITY CALLS FOR DEVELOPERS AND ARCHITECTS TO BE EVER MORE INTENTIONAL ABOUT CONNECTIONS AND INNOVATIONS

BY GEERT DE LOMBAERDE

im Hawkins is all about blurring lines. Among the many ripple effects stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic is a much wider acceptance of the blurring of our workspaces. Sure, many of us were putting in shifts at home or cafés before March 2020, but there is now more fluidity than ever in where work takes place — an apartment building’s patio, a flexible common area, a pocket park between two office towers. Hawkins, a founding principal of Hawkins Partners, says people want more flexibility and a greater focus on health and wellness from their workplaces. But the line-blurring extends to other parts of our urban lives, too. The spaces where we live, play and dine when we’re not working are growing closer together, and professionals in the development community have taken note. “Being architects, we usually think about buildings. But we now also think much more about the spaces in between,” says Curtis Lesh, an associate and project manager at Tuck-Hinton Architecture & Design. The good news: Many developers and landowners also are increasingly doing so, paying attention to — and paying for — public plazas, street trees and other amenities that create better connections from their buildings

to those nearby and to the public space they border. Gone are the days of new buildings having a blank wall stretching hundreds of feet or having a clear-as-day “back” side addressing a side street. “I still evangelize about these things but it doesn’t take much anymore,” Hawkins says. Designs are getting better. And not to be discounted as a factor in this dynamic is an element of benign oneupmanship: Many of the ambitious projects being proposed for or built in various parts of the city’s core are being backed by firms new to town and wanting to make a splash. “It’s testing us in that we want to make sure that what gets developed makes sense and fits in the city,” Lesh says. “But just what that is is changing, too.” Case in point for that dynamic are two separate three-tower plans announced this summer for both sides of Second Avenue a block south of Korean Veterans Boulevard. The projects by Centrum Realty of Chicago and the Boston-based Congress Group — which also built the nearby Four Seasons tower overlooking the Cumberland River — have been designed to both relate well to each other and around park spaces that will open up to one another across Second.

KIM HAWKINS, HAWKINS PARTNERS

CURTIS LESH, TUCK-HINTON ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN

NASHVILLEPOST.COM | FALL 2021

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Better relationships between big buildings is one way the design and function of Nashville’s core is getting better. Here are a few other ideas that would help: • Approach infrastructure in a more holistic way — As growth progresses and large projects “meet” each other more frequently, there are opportunities to think more smartly about how basic services can be tweaked in a dense, built-out core. Lesh says one such chance is rainwater runoff. Traditional construction methods crown roads in the middle and run all collected water out via sewers to treatment plants miles away. But future road projects could at times go in the opposite direction and include bioswales, channels designed to collect and filter water — sometimes through a vegetated median or curb extensions — before it passes into the local water table. And as cities build more complete streets that include hard buffers separating cars from bicyclists and pedestrians, the opportunities to build such bioswales — and reduce the stress on existing infrastructure — also increase. • Think about lower-cost housing in unconventional spaces — Development at the pace Nashville’s core has seen comes with a high price in terms of affordability. Rapidly rising land prices push developers to target higher-end buyers, and even buildings with spaces set aside for lower-rate units don’t have enough of them to make a dent in the need for that product. But, Lesh says, enterprising types could find opportunities in “quirky, oddball sites” in or near The Gulch, Pie Town or SoBro. He is studying for clients a 5,000-square-foot site too small for a large project as well as another home to a cell phone tower. Even in today’s scorching market, such properties are being skipped over, he says. But they are relatively cheap and could thus better lend themselves to workforce housing projects with smaller units. • Look for “small” transit options — High land prices inevitably breed denser development, which improves walkability and, Hawkins says, will lay a stronger groundwork for the building of a stronger public transit system. But where most people might think of buses or light rail when the word transit comes up, Hawkins says smaller options should be included in such discussions. “We need to do a better job recognizing that the blurring of lines expands to public spaces, too,” she says. “Greenways can be part of the transition solution. They’re not just about recreation.” Picture bike lanes in the heart of downtown connecting to greenways that lead to nearby residential communities such as Wedgewood-Houston, Germantown and even MetroCenter, which is getting more apartment options. With appropriate forethought and proper integration, a scenario of an e-bike rider getting to and from work (and likely passing a few grocery/dining stores along the way) in 20 minutes is no longer fanciful — or dangerous.

FALL 2021 | NASHVILLEPOST.COM

Evolving principles Almost two decades after publishing The Plan of Nashville, the Civic Design Center is revisiting some of its core ideas

ublished in 2005, The Plan of Nashville was a major community engagement project facilitated by the Nashville Civic Design Center that brought people together to dream big for the future of Nashville’s development. During that process, consensus emerged around 10 principles to guide public policy, development practice, urban planning and design. While these principles were focused on the Nashville area, they are universal in intent. The principles have shaped much of the last 20 years of the nonprofit’s work. One in particular has taken center stage in the Civic Design Center’s recent advocacy efforts: “Re-establish the streets as the principal public space of community and connectivity.” Why the streets? Most community members don’t think of the street as a public space like we do parks and playgrounds. But they are public resources we pay for yet rarely get to enjoy as more than thruways for vehicles. To better live and breathe that principle, the Design Center has been hosting PARK(ing) Day in Nashville since 2012. PARK(ing) Day is a global event — this year’s will be Sept. 17 — that advocates for more usable public spaces by taking over

GARY GASTON, NASHVILLE CIVIC DESIGN CENTER

metered parking spots and installing parklets for one day. With the help of this local advocacy, the sidewalks on Lower Broadway have been expanded and Church Street Park was saved from a land swap. Now, the Design Center is aiming to help transform Second Avenue following the Christmas Day explosion that devastated much of the historic district. Nearly two decades after publishing The Plan of Nashville, CEO Gary Gaston and his team say their work has helped accomplish the intent of the original streets principle. Looking ahead to the next 20 years, they are adapting its language — and those of other principles from the plan — to go further. The new streets principle will look to “celebrate the streets as places that address neighborhood needs and facilitate community connections” — sentiments and desires echoed elsewhere in this package of stories and illustrations.

The Design Center team is evolving all of its guiding principles to adapt to how Nashville’s public spaces have changed since 2005. The group will celebrate its 20th anniversary at its annual luncheon Nov. 5. Find out more at civicdesigncenter.org.

ERIC ENGLAND

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he South of Broadway Strategic Master Plan published in early 2013 envisioned the roundabout at the top of Korean Veterans Boulevard as a cluster of some of the city’s tallest towers. With Tony Giarratana’s planned tower as well as a 46-story Ritz-Carlton and other projects, that vision is coming true. Also generally on target were predictions that much of the area just south of the Music City Center would grow to house hotels and apartments. What the 2013 plan didn’t anticipate was a cluster of towers along KVB as it nears the Cumberland; recently unveiled projects by firms from Chicago and Boston will extend truly tall development from the area around the Pinnacle at Symphony Place and the Bridgestone Tower across SoBro’s main east-west thoroughfare.

ILLUSTRATION BY LEE FERRIS

We’ve purposely omitted the area south of the KVB Roundabout from our envisioned development frenzy. With Third Man Records, Tennessee Brew Works, City Winery and the Nashville Rescue Mission, it has anchors that may not be moved soon, and it’s likely development will first fill the areas north of Lafayette and south of the Division Street Connector. Another reason we held off: With the mission at Lafayette and Seventh and Room at the Inn nearby on Eighth, this node is home to much of downtown’s capacity of caring for the city’s unhoused. A rushed redevelopment of their properties and the uprooting of their services wouldn’t strike us as progress.

The 2016 proposal for a cluster of towers, highlighted by a 40-story office property, along the interstate loop opened eyes about SoBro’s potential as viewed by non-locals. Here, we’ve used that plan — which would require significant changes to the Downtown Code — along with a few projects under construction to its west to frame downtown’s southern border along the Division Street Connector all the way to Lafayette, where development would meet several can’t-miss public storage buildings. Code changes or not, the conclusion is the same: That terrific vista of downtown from the highway — or the Adventure Science Center, for that matter — isn’t long for this world.

NASHVILLEPOST.COM | FALL 2021

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FUTURE FOCUS HOW ARCHITECTS ARE DEALING WITH A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT

n spring 2020, architecture and interior architecture students at the University of Tennessee worked together with Professor Rana Abudayyeh, architecture firm Gensler and others to study how to reimagine obsolete structures — including a parking garage in Miami Beach and a shopping mall in Los Angeles — for the future. The student teams took into account changing demographics, climate change and other issues of resiliency as they worked on plans to adapt and reuse the structures. We spoke with Abudayyeh about the work and what it could mean for cities in the South.

This project focused on Detroit, L.A., Miami and N.Y.C. What’s the thinking about designing for the South? What are new high-level design and architecture thoughts emerging that will feature in the Tennessee of 2040 and beyond? The impact of our changing climate applies to every place. During the early part of the project’s development, each team researched the major climate issues in each specific city assigned. The methods and tools that the students use to study these cities and implement their designs are skills that apply to any locality. In the South, from an environmental standpoint, increased flooding has been an issue due to global warming. Tragically, we have seen this occurring in real time these last couple of days. Such pressing issues are the challenges to which the next generation of designers must respond. Despite such challenges, our region is rich with design opportunities, building on its cultural heritage and spirit of innovation. Regarding high-level design and architecture in Tennessee, many more architecture firms are committing to sustainable strategies for their projects. Of course, this is an industry-wide

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movement, but the impact in our region will likely be seen in the coming years. Beyond sustainability, there is the matter of resilience; designing smart, adaptive and community-oriented places that cater to wellbeing, diversity and inclusion is central to the future narrative of cities everywhere. Why were the different structures — an abandoned shopping mall, a parking garage, etc. — chosen? We considered these specific program types as models of our existing building stock that we will likely see changing and becoming somewhat obsolete structures in the coming years. We are already witnessing this with indoor shopping malls, and the ongoing pandemic is shedding new light on the future of work and, by extension, office buildings. One primary strategy concerning resilient design is the adaptive reuse of existing structures, which has a significant impact on reducing the carbon footprint for the construction of buildings. Your students considered shifting demographics in Detroit, air quality and pollution in New York and Los Angeles and rising sea levels in Miami Beach. What other issues are facing American cities? Although not necessarily universal, these issues are common across all American cities. Other challenges facing American cities will certainly vary depending on the specific climate region, which is extremely diverse. In the West, the drier climates are seeing issues with water, wildfires and higher temperatures. The coasts will be dealing with the rising sea levels. In our region, higher temperatures appear to have a higher impact on the amount of rain, which requires more mitigation strategies for flooding.

Your students worked with Gensler on this project. How do you make forward-looking resiliency efforts financially viable in the private sector, outside of academic circles? Making forward-looking resiliency efforts financially viable in the private sector requires not only the vision of the designer but also the support of clients and investors, along with an active community engagement. Due to global warming, we will likely see the building and codes address these concerns. However, it’s important to understand that meeting code begets the lowest threshold towards sustainability and resiliency for construction projects. It will be up to the designers, engineers and contractors to educate clients that the long-term value may require higher first costs. This is the benefit of pursuing these themes in academia so that the next generation of designers are more prepared with these ideas when they enter the professional world.

New leadership. New drive. Same reliable reputation.

Joe Griffin RaganSmith CEO eyes the horizon to write the company’s next chapter. AN 88 YEAR OLD COMPANY and a lifetime of experience reflects a rich history that will lead RaganSmith into the future. Griffin, a 34-year veteran of the company, was charged with establishing and growing its transportation consulting services in the late 1980’s. His vision today is broader than ever, representing the firm’s full array of Land Development Services. “Our world has changed dramatically in the past 18 months. Where we live, where we work, when we work….our life decisions have a new sense of flexibility. This mindset has led to an accelerated population growth in Nashville presenting challenging infrastructure needs. How we choose to embrace these challenges will have an everlasting impact on who we are as a people. RaganSmith is equipped with seasoned professionals leading our Planning, Survey, Construction Inspection, Landscape Design, Environmental, Civil, and Transportation services. We are excited to rise to the challenge, serve our clients, serve our communities, invest in our employees, and leave a positive influence on the environments we touch.” – Joe Griffin Why RaganSmith? Our people are our strength. Our knowledge is our skill. Our desire is our drive. Our ingenuity is our talent. Our future is why we care. Through our people, we define, assess, create, connect, inspire, and develop purpose driven solutions for tomorrow’s communities.

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FirstBank Amphitheater

Swinging open the doors A slew of new venues adds a wrinkle to the live music business’ attempts to recover from the pandemic BY MEGAN SELING

ead through The Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce’s 2020 Music Industry Report and one word will come to mind: bleak. In 2019 — when “Corona” was just the name of a beer people drank on the beach — Nashville’s music industry was on the latest leg of a years-long upswing. According to the study, which included interviews with more than 100 experts and surveys of more than 2,500 people, “Nashville is third in the nation in terms of jobs in the music industry behind Los Angeles and

New York” and was ranked “first for net job growth and growth rate” from 2009 to 2019. Then came COVID-19 and the global pandemic — with its quarantines, lockdowns and social distancing requirements — delivered a near-fatal blow to touring and live music, the most profitable branch of the music industry. Musicians quickly adapted by performing virtual concerts: The Music Industry Report noted that “while 83.9 percent of music creators surveyed did not perform any livestream concerts between March and April of 2019, 82.8 percent of music creators performed at least one livestream concert” in the same period of time in 2020. Similarly, several local venues pivoted their programming to stay afloat. The 5 Spot in East Nashville converted its showroom into a makeshift video studio, selling tickets to more than 100 virtual concerts. Others launched fundraising campaigns. Financially, these efforts amounted to barely a drop in the bucket. Nashville’s independent music venues reported an average of 90 percent revenue loss since March 15, 2020, which caused them to lay off an average 89.5 percent of their employees. In December, music industry publication Pollstar reported that the global live music industry lost an estimated $30 billion in 2020.

One wouldn’t easily guess Nashville’s live music industry is struggling as of late, though. On the surface, clubs and venues are reopening, both local and national bands are beginning to take the stages and fans are showing up. In July, The Black Crowes performed to a sold-out crowd at Ascend Amphitheater. Just days later, Luke Bryan performed to a sold-out Bridgestone Arena. Garth Brooks sold more than 70,000 tickets to a scheduled performance at Nissan Stadium, though the concert was first postponed by a strong storm and ultimately canceled due to rising COVID concerns. Another reason to be upbeat about the future: As some smaller, independent venues attempt to claw their way out 2020’s hole, Music City is experiencing the beginning stages of a venue boom. At least half a dozen new live music venues have either recently opened or been announced to open within the next couple of years. In August, the FirstBank Amphitheater in Franklin hosted its first concert. The outdoor venue, housed in a former rock quarry on Franklin’s southern fringe, has a 7,500-seat capacity and has landed both local and touring artists such as Greta Van Fleet, Maren Morris and Counting Crows. Much closer to downtown Nashville, Brooklyn Bowl

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Brooklyn Bowl Nashville

also officially opened this summer across the street from First Horizon Park. The 1,200-capacity venue and bowling alley was originally slated to open in 2020 and hosted several livestream performances before welcoming audiences in June. Country musician Kip Moore and DJ duo Sparkle City Disco performed sold-out shows in June and July, respectively. This October, Eastside Bowl will open its doors to the public in Madison. In addition to 16 bowling lanes, the 32,000-square-foot space will be home to a 750-person music venue called The Wash at Eastside Bowl. About five months later, in March, The Roots Barn will open down the street in Madison. The 600-capacity venue will be the permanent home of the weekly Music City Roots radio show and webcast and be a new option for artists eyeing more intimate shows. Also next spring, Nashville SC’s stadium at The Fairgrounds Nashville — it will be the largest socPARENT COFFEE & TOURS EVERY THURSDAY @ 10 A.M. cer-specific stadium in the country — will open PARENT CHOFFEE ARENT OFFEE OURS 4001 ARDING R& OADTOURS its doors. Club officials claim on their website that EVERY THURSDAY @37205 10 AT .MOURS . PARENT C OFFEE & NASHVILLE ,T TN E VERY HURSDAY @ 10 A . M . they’ll be able to host 27,000 music fans for concerts, 4001 HARDING OAD EVERY THURSDAY @R10 A.EDU .M. WWW .MONTGOMERYBELL T OFFEE OURS rivaling the 20,000 seats at Bridgestone Arena and 4001 H ARDING R OAD ARENT OURS P ARENT COFFEE OFFEE & TOURS N ASHVILLE , TN 37205 4001 H ARDING R OAD ERY THURSDAY 10 A.M. @ — given the venue’s surrounding infrastructure — E@ VERY T HURSDAY @ A . M . WWW . MONTGOMERYBELL . EDU EVERY T HURSDAY 10 M . NASHVILLE , TN 37205 , TN 37205 NASHVILLE ARDING R ROAD OAD.EDU R4001 OAD 4001 HARDING 4001 HHARDING WWW .WWW MONTGOMERYBELL .MONTGOMERYBELL .EDU N ASHVILLE,,TN TN 37205 37205 ASHVILLE NASHVILLE, TNN37205 WWW .MONTGOMERYBELL..EDU WWW .MONTGOMERYBELL EDU W.MONTGOMERYBELL .EDU ®

UP TO CAPACITY Middle Tennessee’s live music venue inventory is growing with the addition of properties near Nashville’s core and in Franklin. Here’s a look at some properties’ concert attendance limits.

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PARENT COFFEE & TOURS EVERY THURSDAY @ 10 A.M.

Nissan Stadium

70,000+*

Nashville SC stadium

27,000**

Bridgestone Arena

20,000

FirstBank Amphitheater

7,500

Ascend Amphitheater

6,800

Ryman Auditorium

2,362

Brooklyn Bowl Nashville

1,200

The Roots Barn

600

* Number of tickets sold to Garth Brooks’ postponed show this summer ** Opening May 2022

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staking their claim as a regional destination for not a top-tier market for concerts,” Holt adds. touring festivals. And looking further ahead, “We still vary and waver when it comes to bedevelopers of Nashville Yards said this summer ing a top-tier concert market. You need those they will partner with entertainment industry different buildings. It brings a different level, a giant AEG on a 4,000-capacity music venue different vibe and a different experience than expected to open in 2024. what’s here right now. I always appreciate the The building boom prompts the questions: growth and I think the city can sustain that.” Is there room for all this growth, especially as Holt cites Los Angeles, New York and Atthe industry is still reeling from the shock of lanta as the cities Nashville can’t yet compete the pandemic? Are these venues adding more with, but he also notes that where new venues vibrant options to Music City and growing the are being built is as important as when and pie? Or are they creating competition for estabwhy. Looking at a map of Nashville’s more lished venues just beginning to bounce back? than 150 live music venues, unsurprisingly, “The city deserves that type of diversity and the majority of them are downtown. There are experience,” says Eric Holt, assistant professor around 10 in East Nashville, including Nissan of music business at Belmont University and Stadium, and even fewer to both the north managing partner of local booking company and south of downtown. The Lovenoise Group. Lovenoise has been Many of the new additions — save for The booking and promoting shows in Nashville Roots Barn and Eastside Bowl about seven for 18 years, including at City Winery, Ascend miles northeast of Lower Broadway — will be and the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. dropped in the middle of an already saturated “I think the city will benefit greatly because, part of Nashville. While there may not be much even though the city has grown, we still are physical distance between venues, there are wide ai162992510623_Southeast Venture_half page BOOM 2021 ad.pdf 1 8/25/2021 3:58:27 PM

gaps in programming. Holt, who, as a promoter, works primarily with Black artists in a variety of genres, points out how the venue boom could help address Nashville’s lack of diversity. According to the chamber’s Music Industry Report, only 8 percent of music industry professionals in Nashville are Black or African American. That disparity extends to the musicians and artists being booked, too, and addressing that lack of diversity is one way this current growth spurt could avoid oversaturation. “The No. 1 consumed genre of music in the last three, four years has been R&B and hiphop,” Holt says. “So you’re in Music City and you only have one hip-hop show at Bridgestone a year. You’re not following the trend of the country. I think as long as the powers that be book these venues with the concept of really catering to not just one genre but making it diverse, I think that will help our city move forward. “I think Nashville has a great opportunity,” he adds. “Hopefully, we’ll see it through.”

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Dating back to 2011, we’ve convened a group of the most interesting, forward-thinking women in Middle Tennessee’s business and nonprofit sectors at our Most Powerful Women event. This year’s group is another impressive one and includes Kate Burke, Cordia Harrington, Dee Patel and Tina Tuggle. The four women will gather to discuss leadership, career development and more on Sept. 17 at the Grand Hyatt, and you can join them by buying a ticket at nashvillemostpowerfulwomen.com. The event is a collaboration with our colleagues at Nfocus and their Model Behavior program. More information on those honorees, and the nonprofit causes they champion, can be found on pages 32 and 33 and at nfocusmagazine.com.

PHOTOS BY DANIEL MEIGS

NASHVILLEPOST.COM | FALL 2021

LEADERS

kate burke COO and Head of Private Wealth, AllianceBernstein

What is the biggest challenge facing women in leadership? I think all women are facing a critical crossroads during this post-pandemic return-to-office and navigating the new way of working. I ask myself constantly, “How do we continue to support women without enabling gender bias and stereotypes?” If men are in the office more than women, how do you ensure women are not passed over for promotions? Leaders of nearly every company and corporation in America are trying to find the answer. I hope it continues to be a priority for companies. Who was an important mentor and what’s the most lasting tenet that person left you? Rick Galiardo, who is now retired, has been a mentor to me. He appropriately saw that there were things that I could help him with, and he really leveraged me and helped me show others that I could really get things done. There’s no shortage of great ideas out there; getting from a great idea to the actual execution is what is really challenging. Rick let me really execute. He believed in me and advocated for me, which is something that I will always take away from my time working with him. He taught me the importance of sharing in your success — rather than taking sole credit. He was always quick to recognize great work and he was very generous in his recognition. To me, that’s an important characteristic of a good leader. It is not about the “I,” it is about the “we” — what have we done together. What’s the best leadership advice you recently received? Knowing the difference between urgency and patience. I know where I want to go and where I want to take AB. I just want us all to get there faster, together. Incremental change is the first step, but we want to

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keep a steady cadence of those incremental steps to begin to see real change at a quicker pace. I recognize the reality of needing to work through the organization, and there is a fine line between urgency and patience — the balance is so crucial. I’m working toward achieving that balance and understanding that it’s a journey and not a switch that can be flipped on and off. What have you learned about how to lead during the COVID pandemic? The pandemic has taught me to be more agile and the power of perseverance. I had to learn to change tracks mid-course and embrace the fact that we are currently living in the unknown. I have continued to grow comfortable with that discomfort and more comfortable with not having all the answers. I will carry this agility with

me back to the office, and I strongly believe that individuals in senior leadership positions should also be extremely willing to adapt, change and overcome. At the end of the day, we must remember that these mindsets have a trickledown effect, and in such times, the role of leadership can alter a person’s career. What’s the most common piece of advice you find yourself giving other leaders or aspiring leaders? Opportunities that scare you or make you uncomfortable may be good for your career. Every “next” opportunity I have had has always made me uncomfortable. Don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone. Even if you fail or decide to alter your career trajectory or course, you have ultimately expanded your knowledge and expertise even further. That still counts as a success.

LEADERS

cordia harrington

Founder and CEO, Crown Bakeries

How would you say your leadership style and strengths have evolved over time? My leadership style has evolved to a place where I listen more, ask the associate’s opinion on the best way to resolve an issue, then let them handle it. It may not be done “my way,” but often they handle issues better than I would have! What is the biggest challenge facing women in leadership? Women are still not “heard.” Sometimes a man down the table repeats my idea five minutes after I make a suggestion and it then becomes a “good idea.” That is frustrating. Who was an important mentor and what’s the most lasting tenet that person left you? My husband Tom often tells me, “Shake it off, kid!” and he is typically right. It can be better to cool off and let a little time pass before addressing an issue. Was there any advice that you received when you started that really stuck with you and inspired you? Hire for character; you can train the skills. If you have trust and are working with honorable people, you can reach any goal! What has come relatively easy for you during this odd pandemic time? What has been difficult? COVID has offered me the chance to really slow down and be more “present” at meetings, read details in business documents and even try new recipes at home. It has been more difficult not seeing customers and associates in person. I appreciate Zoom but it is not the same as being in person. What’s the most common piece of advice you find yourself giving other leaders or aspiring leaders? It is important to encourage bravery, to “go for it.” Have the courage to give your idea a try! Believe in your instincts, trust your judgement and move forward. What advice would you give those looking to become an active mentor? Be willing to spend the time, initiate the meetings and create opportunities for the candidate.

LEADERS

dee patel

Managing Director, The Hermitage Hotel What is the biggest challenge facing women in leadership? Balancing professional goals with personal lives continues to be a challenge. We continue to be faced with obstacles that prevent many working mothers from achieving their desired professional potential. The pandemic was a stark reminder of this. Extraordinary numbers of women found they needed to step back or away from their careers because of childcare demands exacerbated by the pandemic. Who was an important mentor and what’s the most lasting tenet that person left you? I can’t think of any more important mentors than my parents. I was raised by hard-working people who didn’t take things for granted, and I have my parents to thank for building a strong foundation that has grounded me throughout my journey in life. Today, it’s my own children, whose innocence and joy in life are my most meaningful inspiration. What’s the best leadership advice you recently received? “Don’t sweat the small stuff” is advice I received a while ago, and it’s timeless. I live by it and I give that advice to others. It has helped me put small challenges in context and stay focused on the most important objectives. What have you learned about how to lead during the COVID pandemic? Being flexible as a leader is paramount. It’s essential to find ways to work around challenges and look for the opportunity in adversity. There was no playbook for running a hotel during the pandemic and The Hermitage never closed. We thought like entrepreneurs and chose to focus on the silver lining. We learned what we could do within pandemic boundaries and developed creative programs to engage our guests, such as inventive Afternoon Teas and centennial Suffrage Movement celebrations. Additionally, we seized the opportunity to embark on a comprehensive plan that will take The Hermitage into the future with an elevated new experience, beginning with the launch of our culinary collaboration and new restaurant this fall. What’s the most common piece of advice you find yourself giving other leaders or aspiring leaders? Take the emotion out of a situation so that you can examine it with clarity.

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tina tuggle

Vice President of Community Impact, Tennessee Titans

What is the biggest challenge facing women in leadership? Believing that you belong is important in showing others that you deserve to be there and are an important asset based on skills and not gender — and in my case, ethnicity. Who was an important mentor and what’s the most lasting tenet that person left you? I was raised in a family of strong women and I learned so much from each of them. When I was in college, my mother would always mail me clippings with quotes from the Commercial Appeal comic section. The one that I’ve carried with me throughout my career reads, “Every job is a self-portrait of the person who did it. Autograph your work with excellence.” What’s the best leadership advice you recently received? I have so many people in my life that have inspired me. When I think of this in the perspective of leadership, I was once told to hire people that you wouldn’t mind working for someday. One of the biggest marks of good leadership is the success of those you lead. Can you tell us about a pivotal moment or decision you made that helped advance your career? Working at Rhodes College in Memphis in 1997, we were excited to host the Tennessee Oilers for a three-day training camp on our campus. It was important that we were on our best behavior for them. One of the coaches didn’t have what was needed for practice; I overheard the conversation and assisted. Later that day, the head coach thanked me and asked that I meet with him and the general manager regarding employment opportunities. I did and was offered a job immediately. That was Aug. 2, 1997, and my first day was Sept. 2, 1997. In that moment, I understood the importance of being your best even when you don’t think anyone is watching. How do you think you’re leading differently as we’re (hopefully) putting the pandemic behind us? I think connectedness has always been a part of my leadership style. I like to know the people I work with to best understand how to best service them. Most people see leaders as in charge but I see it differently: Typically the person who leads really is the person that serves. In order for my team to be most effective, I need to ensure that I’ve provided them with the tools necessary to succeed. What advice would you give those looking to become an active mentor? Appreciate being a part of the journey by meeting people where they are and helping them get to where they want to be.

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JOIN THE CLUB

We’ve been honored for the past decade to bring together area women leaders for candid and inspiring conversations about leadership, growth and paving the way for others. Here’s who preceded this year’s class and where they worked at the time.

2011

Sharon Hurt, Jefferson Street United Merchants Partnership Ellen Lehman, Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee Jenneen Kaufman, Tennessee Titans Linda Rebrovick, Consensus Point Claire Tucker, CapStar Bank

Pinnacle Financial Partners would like to congratulate Cordia Harrington and the 2021 Most Powerful Women honorees.

2012

Megan Barry, Premier Agenia Clark, Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee Aileen Katcher, Katcher Vaughn & Bailey Dawn Rudolph, Saint Thomas Health

2013

Jacky Akbari, Nashville Career Advancement Center Sherry Stewart Deutschmann, LetterLogic Stacey Garrett, Bone McAllester Norton Janet Miller, Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce

2014

Lisa Boggs, Bridgestone Americas Glenda Glover, Tennessee State University Heather Rowan, TriStar Centennial Medical Center Sally Williams, Ryman Auditorium

2015

Paula Lovell, Lovell Communications Joelle Phillips, AT&T Renata Soto, Conexión Americas Christie Wilson, The Wilson Group Real Estate Services

2016

CORDIA HARRINGTON Founder and CEO of Crown Bakeries

Tammy Hawes, Virsys12 Beth Hoeg, Trinisys Nicole Tremblett, HCA Healthcare Rachel Werner, Built Technologies

2019

Maneet Chauhan, Morph Hospitality Jane MacLeod, Cheekwood Mekesha Montgomery, Frost Brown Todd Sharon Roberson, YWCA Nashville & Middle Tennessee Carol Yochem, First Horizon Bank

2020

Jane Allen, Nashville Entrepreneur Center Mignon Francois, The Cupcake Collection Shanna Jackson, Nashville State Community College Becca Stevens, Thistle Farms

Pinnacle Financial Partners are proud to be EC Partners.

LEADERS

model behavior For 17 years, Nfocus has celebrated the beauty of philanthropy through its annual Model Behavior issue. Each fall, local nonprofits nominate female philanthropists, volunteers and board members who have shown selfless generosity and service to their causes, and Nfocus selects 10 to honor in its September issue. The Post salutes the 2021 class of Model Behavior honorees. To learn more about these women and the organizations they represent, pick up the September issue of Nfocus or visit nfocusmagazine.com.

Debra Fair

Laurel Graefe

PEDIGREE Foundation

TennGreen Land Conservancy

PHOTOS BY DANIEL MEIGS

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Hasina Mohyuddin

Dee Patel

PENCIL

Centennial Park Conservancy

LEADERS

Tracy Kane

Dionne Lucas

Lisa Manning

TPAC

Nashville Ballet

Cheekwood Estate & Gardens

Paulina Robles

Joanne Sowell

Sarah Trahern

Rebuilding Together Nashville

Impact100 Nashville

Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee

NASHVILLEPOST.COM | FALL 2021

LEADERS

Greater giving Key players in Middle Tennessee philanthropy talk trends, lessons learned during the pandemic oming off a tumultuous 2020 in which philanthropic giving grew as a share of the U.S. economy, the team at advisory firm Lighthouse Counsel this summer convened a briefing on the state of the sector that featured presentation of research by two Giving USA researchers as well as a roundtable with four local leaders from the nonprofit sector. The panel included Kate Chinn, vice president and head of community and civic engagement at AllianceBernstein; Farzin Ferdowsi, CEO of Management Resources Co. and a board member of Boys & Girls Clubs of Middle Tennessee; Pete Griffin, president and CEO of Musicians On Call; and Scott Perry, president of The Memorial Foundation. Here are some edited excerpts from their conversation, which was moderated by Post Editor Geert De Lombaerde.

DE LOMBAERDE: How have you seen the

market settle after an incredibly active, busy, life-changing 2020? What have you seen that has changed? GRIFFIN: We certainly had to get innovative when it came to not only raising money, but actually executing our programs on the ground. As an organization that relied on in-person, in-hospital [work] — obviously, with the pandemic, that’s not happening. And so we had to get creative and go virtual. But in doing that, I think we learned a lot.

We learned the importance of our messaging. […] And those affected by the pandemic really helped us to engage with donors that wanted to support. Because a lot of times, what we were finding with donors is they wanted to do something related to the pandemic but didn’t know where to turn. Then the other thing is [that] relationships are something that we focused on for so long. But it really came to fruition how important those were last year. Because when times got tough, the people and organizations that you had strong relationships with were the ones that continued to stand by your side. A lot of times, we don’t see the fruits of that labor immediately. But during the pandemic, we realized that the time that we had spent in developing and stewarding relationships really helped us out. PERRY: I would just like to express how proud I am of the nonprofit sector. I think I speak on behalf of all of us just how incredibly strong and resilient and creative the nonprofit sector has been through this crisis. There’s been a mindset shift, I think, among donors. We look at our giving as less charitable and more as a critically important investment in our community. There’s a rise in the engagement of the entire community and being a part of the solution. And I might just add a thing or two about our federal government. For all the criticism of its bureaucracies and its inefficiencies, they stepped up big last year. […] The private sector did not have the capacity to get that kind of money out that quickly.

KATE CHINN, ALLIANCEBERNSTEIN

‘Many of us in the foundation world got way out ahead of our budgets early on last year. It was intentional.’ SCOT T PERRY, THE MEMORIAL FOUNDATION

CHINN: We had a very new corporate giving

program that we had really launched in Nashville in 2019 and our plan was always to expand that. But 2020 came along and, not only did we want to continue to support the partnerships we had formed in Nashville in 2019, but we’re a global firm [so] we had to quickly respond in a global way to the pandemic. We did that through supporting frontline workers and distributing PPE. We also became keenly aware very quickly that there was a disproportionate impact on communities of color and other more vulnerable communities. Our strategy really shifted in that direction and that has continued.

PETE GRIFFIN, MUSICIANS ON CALL

NASHVILLEPOST.COM | FALL 2021

LEADERS

DE LOMBAERDE: I thought it was very in-

teresting that the report mentioned how many people were new to giving last year. How do you approach that from a fundraising perspective? How do you try to find those new people?

FERDOWSI: We’re going through a whole

lot of changes. I think technology is very important to get to the millennials and then, you know, a giving relationship has a lot to do with it. And I don’t know how you do relationships with technology so somehow you have to find your way. At the Boys & Girls Clubs, we’re trying to get more online and do things.

DE LOMBAERDE: Scott, was there a similar

dynamic for you in terms of having to do more work online and maybe having different types of interactions last year? How did things change in terms of relationships that you had and relationships that you wanted to have?

PERRY: We quickly ramped up on Zoom conferencing and had a lot of meetings interactively with our nonprofit partners. Technology is certainly a great avenue for enhancing giving, but fundamentally, a development staff and a communication staff play a vital role in getting the message out on what the need is and how their particular organizations are addressing those needs. That’s how you really engage the community and engage giving. 2020 really helped catapult that. DE LOMBAERDE: Pete, you mentioned these great long-term relationships that really paid off for you during the pandemic. You’re the chief fundraiser as the CEO of the organization. How did you change what you were doing? What did you focus on versus maybe a more normal year? GRIFFIN: The change started internally. My first priority was to make sure the culture of our organization and our staff were taken care of first and foremost. Like anything else, you can have a great plan, a great strategy. But if you don’t have the right people and they’re not motivated and feeling safe and secure in what they’re doing, it’s not going to go anywhere. So we spent a lot of time internally just making sure the staff was supported and we had a clear

FALL 2021 | NASHVILLEPOST.COM

direction on where we’re going, which was allocating all of our resources to build out our virtual program. From there, the individual relationships we had with people that either worked at corporations or were donors of ours became critically important. The first phase of it, I would say, was checking in. It was just the humanity of it. I just wanted to make sure that people were doing well. […] I wasn’t making any asks. I really wanted to make sure that people knew this was bigger than supporting and their dollars. It was more about [what] as humans we are all doing together. After that, we spent a lot of time really cultivating those relationships. I think the staff counted nearly 1,000 video messages that were just to a specific person, thanking them for their support, checking in, giving them an update. Off of those videos, I think we raised over $50,000 unsolicited — just people that were touched that we took the time to reach out to them and check in on them. DE LOMBAERDE: Kate, the report mentioned corporate giving actually fell a little bit as a percentage of the total. You mentioned that you wanted to make sure that you lined up your ducks a little more. That may have contributed to some of the relative drop in spending. CHINN: Yeah, that’s a good question. That was striking to me — watching and seeing that corporate giving fell — because it didn’t feel like that at AB. It’s really interesting to me that it did. Corporations’ first job was to ensure that their employees were safe and to ensure they all had remote access so that they could continue working. And that was AllianceBernstein’s first priority as well. But then I feel like we immediately shifted to, “How can we help?” I don’t think there’s a downward trend in giving for corporations. I think that a lot of the budgets that come into any year depend on the pre-tax profits of the year before. Corporations are not as flexible as individuals or foundations within the year. […] They are getting a lot of pressure from employees to increase their corporate social responsibility so I would be surprised if this continues to go down. I think it will go up.

DE LOMBAERDE: That makes sense intuitively. Scott, in terms of foundations growing their share of giving: You’re able to plan out things a little more than someone in Kate’s role. What do you see in terms of trends for foundation giving as a whole? PERRY: Just looking at those statistics earlier, it’s impressive that foundations really stepped up. I’m not sure that that will continue. At some point, that’s going to level off. Many of us in the foundation world got way out ahead of our budgets early on last year. It was intentional. It didn’t catch us flat-footed. We had a number of emergency meetings of our board making recommendations on how to get funds out quickly. But I think that over time, we will move in a direction toward more traditional levels of giving based on our asset sizes with an eye on long-term sustainability. DE LOMBAERDE: Kate, as you look to the rest of 2021, what is it that you’re paying attention to as a marker, an event or a trend that you’d like to see to give you more of a sense of where we’re headed? CHINN: We have our plan. We had it at the end of 2020. So what the silver lining of ’20 was for us was that we were forced to expand quickly and make sure we were having a global lens on all of our giving. It was great that it had started in Nashville; we had really built out that program and it served as our model. But now in 2021, we have a grants program in Asia-Pacific, we have a grants program in Europe and we have a grants program in New York. And I’m so heartened that we were able to change that so quickly in 2020 and really continue on with full, robust programs. I also just want to take a second to echo Scott and Pete and say I have been so impressed with the nonprofit sector. They have absolutely gone above and beyond with very little resources, with not ideal situations, doing things virtually. They’ve all risen to the occasion and it has been very heartwarming.

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VITALS

Out of necessity TennCare’s claims denial process is far stricter than the national average BY KARA HARTNETT

ince the inception of Tennessee’s managed Medicaid program in 1994, state officials have been attempting to balance cost with health care services for the state’s most vulnerable and sickest population. Through waivers and health care reform, the state’s safety-net insurance program has evolved widely over the years, but the basics remain the same: Tennessee pays commercial insurers and other care management organizations on a per-capita basis to manage Medicaid beneficiaries’ health care while attempting to drive down spending and costs.

FALL 2021 | NASHVILLEPOST.COM

Representative of the evolution of those competing interests may be TennCare’s medical service appeals system, whose outcomes today almost always favor the state and its managed care organizations. The care prescribed by the doctor of a TennCare beneficiary is subject to review by the paying organization, which can deny a claim it believes is unnecessary or has a cheaper alternative. The State of Tennessee does not publish data on the number of claims that are denied to beneficiaries by each managed care organization per year and officials declined to discuss details of TennCare’s policies and claims process. But an internal appeals process captures a tiny percentage of patients and doctors who

petition TennCare to reconsider — often for services such as home health or major procedures the primary care physicians see as medically necessary for their patients. In 2020, of the 8,338 enrollees who appealed the decision of their managed care organization to deny them medical services prescribed by their physicians, 3,006 were resolved by a fair hearing. Of those who got a hearing before the contractor hired by the state, only 145 — less than 5 percent — were able to overturn the original denial. According to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the average rate that internal appeals are overturned across all health insurers was 34.2 percent in 2019.

VITALS

The 5,332 other appellants were filtered out prior to a fair hearing — the procedures of which are governed by federal law — either by a redetermination by the MCO or via two legal principles developed by state statute and years of court battles: medical necessity reviews and a finding of no valid factual dispute. Tennessee made an unprecedented change to its definition of medical necessity in the early 2000s as the Medicaid program sought to rein in costs. The definition required that physicians sought the least expensive care alternative for which there was substantial scientific evidence backing its use. According to a report by Kaiser Health Foundation, the parameters were more restrictive than any other health insurer — private or public — in the nation and allowed the payer of last resort to categorically remove entire sections of health care services that had been covered. In short, the metaphorical safety net has shrunk in size. Since passage of the Affordable Care Act and subsequent health care and insurance reforms, Tennessee has altered its definition of medical necessity slightly but the outcomes remain the same: For the past 10 years, between 8 percent and 12 percent of appeals were determined before a hearing not to be medically necessary. “You create a very stringent definition of medical necessity. You create a financial incentive to cut services and you apply this utilization process in which the doctor who knows the patient and is prescribing the care has to justify this standard of medical necessity. And all of that makes for some very tough gatekeeping by the insurance companies as to who gets care or not,” says Tennessee Justice Center Co-Founder Gordon Bonnyman, a longtime health care attorney and patient advocate who for years has participated in court battles against TennCare on behalf of beneficiaries. “They have totally rigged the game in favor of the house.” A three-decades-long court battle Bonnyman has litigated alongside other advocacy groups and health care organizations over TennCare’s handling of enrollment and the denial of medical services has also changed

‘The nature of those appeals haven’t changed; they still involve factual disputes. But hey, the hall monitor isn’t around anymore.’ GORDON BONNYMAN, TENNESSEE JUSTICE CENTER

The state and federal governments in 2013 entered into a 10-year, $83 million contract with care management and quality oversight company Keystone Peer Review Organization to provide appeals services for TennCare. The contract ends in 2022 and the state has started the bidding process for a new vendor. During the pandemic, the state expanded KEPRO’s contract to include contact tracing services to supplement the Department of Health’s efforts. That contract has since ended, resulting in the laying off more than 50 people from an office in Donelson.

TennCare’s appeals process over time. According to plaintiffs in the case, the managed care organizations brought in by the state frequently sought to curtail providing necessary health care in favor of their bottom lines. Through negotiations in that lawsuit, U.S. District Court Judge John Dixon of the Middle District of Tennessee in 2005 ordered an array of consumer protections within the TennCare appeals process, causing the state to overturn most denials after an appeal was filed. In 2007, TennCare officials asked to modify those protections, citing federal law and piggy-backing off another court ruling in the 6th Circuit. That opinion allowed the state to deny enrollment appeals where there was no “factual dispute” and use the same principle when determining whether medical service appeals should go to a hearing. The factual-dispute clause prevents beneficiaries from challenging TennCare policies that exclude coverage of certain medical services, instead denying them outright as a matter of law without an appeals hearing. In a 2007 ruling on the matter, Judge Dixon wrote, “it will be a rare case indeed that is dismissed for failure to raise a valid factual dispute.” Dixon’s assessment missed the mark: In 2020, more than 3,200 cases were dismissed prior to a hearing because they failed to raise a valid factual dispute, according to state data. That amounts to nearly 40 percent of total appellants whose doctors had ordered certain treatments or services. Four years ago, all of the protections outlined by Judge Dixon in the case were eliminated as the state moved to dismiss the original lawsuit entirely. In the years since, appeals outcomes have fluctuated with overall TennCare enrollment, with about 25 percent of cases going to a fair hearing and only 5 to 10 percent of those getting ruled in favor of the patient. “The nature of those appeals haven’t changed; they still involve factual disputes. But hey, the hall monitor isn’t around anymore,” Bonnyman says. “They are denying a lot of people these hearings in which these services are, in fact, medically necessary.”

NASHVILLEPOST.COM | FALL 2021

VITALS

Power in numbers Complex rehab technology companies are growing. Next up: getting more buy-in from insurers BY CEDRIC DENT JR.

he Nashville area’s health care ecosystem generates about $100 billion in annual revenues from just about all corners of the industry. The complex rehabilitation technology space isn’t one that catches a lot of the spotlight, but several of its key players are based in Middle Tennessee. They’re growing, too, and pushing for a helping hand from the insurance industry to fulfill what they see as their market potential. Home to HCA Healthcare and other hospital players as well as surgery center operators and senior care providers, the Nashville area presents a wealth of marketing opportunities for CRT companies as the U.S. population’s average lifespan continues to climb and produces a robust pipeline of potential clients with ailments that necessitate equipment such as power wheelchairs. Those products are far more than just wheelchairs with motors: Contemporary models are smart chairs that not only move at variable speeds but also rotate nimbly, elevate and lower the seats and connect to features for OnStar-like alerts so that chair producers can send out technicians to assess the product or help users take advantage of the chairs’ features.

FALL 2021 | NASHVILLEPOST.COM

Among the local CRT players is Swedish global producer Permobil, which has had its headquarters for North and South America in Lebanon since 2000. The two other big names are National Seating & Mobility, or NSM, and Numotion. Both companies are headquartered in Williamson County and owned by large private equity firms — NSM by Cinven since 2019 and Numotion by AEA Investors,

which bought a majority stake in 2018 — and market and distribute equipment and related technologies. (Numotion also sells urological supplies and speech-related solutions.) NSM runs 180 locations throughout North America — it first expanded into Canada nearly three years ago — while Numotion has about 150 stores in the United States and works with more than 260,000 clients.

COURTESY OF LUCI

VITALS

All three companies have been acquiring of peers in recent years. In addition to buying small retail operations as NSM has been doing, Numotion in July acquired Ohio-based SpinLife.Com, an e-commerce firm that markets durable medical equipment for disabled and elderly consumers. The deal added 80,000 annual customers to Numotion’s client base. Around the same time, Permobil executed a different strategy by acquiring Progeo, an Italian manual wheelchair manufacturer. Affordability is critical to the CRT sector because part of the draw of power wheelchairs and other products is that they can help lower expensive emergency room and inpatient care episodes. Yet, despite their market’s long-term promise and their own financial muscle, CRT companies are still looking to make a bigger mark. “There’s a lot of conversation in the world today about social justice and minorities, but by and large, the disabled community has not had a unified, big voice,” says Isaac Rodriguez, senior vice president of strategic development at NSM. “And the last time they had a huge win was when they had the ADA pass, and that was George Bush I.” Part of the value proposition of today’s more finely engineered CRT products is that they help relieve pressure and joint pain and can ward off the development of pressure ulcers. Better seating and positioning can also make patients less susceptible to falling, which often leads to hospital or nursing home stays. “That can lead to significant health care costs,” says Numotion CEO Mike Swinford, whose organization scored a 100 on the 2021 Disability Equality Index developed by the Disability:IN nonprofit. Looking to further help improve the cost-benefit dynamic — and thus get more insurers on board — is Nashville startup Luci, which has developed a novel power wheelchair attachment system that amalgamates camera, radar and ultrasonic data sets to create a 360-degree view. The company’s work earned it a spot on Time magazine’s Best Inventions of 2020 and its system already is part of Numotion’s inventory and in the pilot phase at NSM. “We are partnering with the manufacturers, but we are bringing a new level of connectivity and product intelligence that has never existed in the mobility space,” Luci CEO Barry Dean says.

ERIC ENGLAND

‘Payers have evolved and recognize that CRT is a critical part of medically necessary care, meaning it is essential to protecting and improving the health status of a patient.’ MIKE SWINFORD, NUMOTION

All about the data To help make the case for CRT products, NSM also is running a research and development operation, chiefly by collaborating with multiple organizations including the University of Pittsburgh on functional mobility assessments. Those survey patients on targeted data points that correlate with noticeable benefits (or the lack thereof) to determine if and how CRT products are improving pain, daily routine and other issues. The goal is to show that patients are experiencing fewer falls or are able to work more and in other ways have a better quality of life. That data can then help validate the companies’ claims to insurers. Rodriguez says carriers still disagree over whether technical features such as seat elevators on power wheelchairs — which let users reach things in higher places with less risk or be better seen between cars in parking lots or while crossing streets — should be covered. The goal is to have the data serve as lobbying ammunition for NSM and its peers with legislators.

“There’s technology that has come out that, up until this point, insurances and Medicare say, ‘We think that’s a convenience item,’” Rodriguez says. “We’re getting very close on seat-elevate.” The connected chair is a similar example of advancements CRT producers feel insurers should cover. But there’s been little to suggest that will happen soon. “Quite honestly, the CRT industry has been fighting reimbursement reductions,” Rodriguez says. “We’re telling insurances, ‘You can’t keep cutting us.’ One of the biggest wins that we would have would be the seat elevator coverage. That would be a pretty significant win.” Part of insurers’ reticence stems from having been burned in the past by fraud and abuse. In 2007, the Inspector General’s Office at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services resolutely determined that Medicare power wheelchair claims did not meet documentation requirements, citing “numerous instances of fraud and abuse” and “growth in Medicare power wheelchair expenditures.” By 2018, the same concerns still appeared prevalent when a federal jury convicted a Jackson, Tennessee, couple and their son of health care fraud for misrepresenting coverage options of power wheelchairs and forging documents to qualify buyers of units produced by Jackson-based Jaspan Medical Systems. Swinford views Numotion’s acquisition of SpinLife as a means to secure a significant number of consumers who can afford the company’s products with or without insurance coverage. “Payors have evolved and recognize that CRT is a critical part of medically necessary care, meaning it is essential to protecting and improving the health status of a patient,” Swinford tells the Post. “We work closely with health plans and most now understand why CRT is so important. However, customers still face challenges with documentation requirements, inconsistent denials and differing requirements among payers.” Luci’s Dean says the status quo of sorts between manufacturers and insurers “has led to a stagnation of innovation.” But Dean is optimistic insurers can still be coaxed into supporting products in this space. “We’ve had seven state Medicaid programs fund Luci, as well as one large private insurer, using a ‘miscellaneous’ code,” he says. “It’s still a long road to having our own code but we feel like payors are rapidly understanding” the value of Luci.

NASHVILLEPOST.COM | FALL 2021

The 2021 Analytics Summit is Nashville’s premiere conference on leveraging big data and analytics in a two-day event featuring in-person networking, presentations, and workshops. The program is Presented by AWS and this year includes a healthcare analytics track in partnership with Tennessee HIMSS.

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‘Nonprofits and community organizations are the ideal incubator’ A closer look at the goals and next steps for Belmont’s $60M push into data programs elmont University President Greg Jones in August announced the launch of the Belmont Data Collaborative, an initiative that will develop curricula and programming for both Belmont students and local technology-oriented professionals. Belmont intends to invest more than $60 million in the next five years to build the BDC, a sum that will include the effort’s own physical space on campus. Leading the push is Charlie Apigian, the founding director of the Data Science Institute at Middle Tennessee State University who also is now a Belmont professor of business and system analytics. Apigian, who is charged with building partnerships to connect the BDC to various parts of Belmont’s campus as well as Middle Tennessee’s economy more broadly, spoke with Kathryn Rickmeyer about his plans and some of his team’s next steps.

What degree program(s) will be involved with the BDC? The ability to use complex data to solve problems is crucial in today’s world. Everybody should have data literacy. Our goal is for all Belmont students to enroll in one or more of the courses we design. There are different layers of data skill and different needs for different programs. Business majors will benefit by using industry financial softwares to assess and calculate risks whereas a journalism major may take a course on Excel to identify trends to tell a story. Data and computer science majors will take more traditional and specific coursework for their degree programs. However, I really want to emphasize that all students and degree programs will benefit from the BDC. How will the coursework and curriculum be designed? Who will be teaching the courses? The courses will be collaborative and create opportunities for hands-on learning within our community.

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The primary goal of the curriculum is to teach students how to identify practical applications of data to solve problems. This includes identifying data sources, manipulating data to understand patterns and trends and extrapolating the data to find solutions. We will partner with local nonprofits and community organizations to give students an opportunity for experiential learning and to do good within our community. Within these real-world courses, we will be teaching students how to be good stewards of data — refraining from bias and building a foundation of ethics and inclusivity. As far as instructors are concerned, we are looking at recruiting both full-time and adjunct professors. I believe there is a benefit to having a healthy blend of academics and industry professionals. More often than not, traditional academic professors provide a strong foundation of data fundamentals and skills while adjunct professors guide students in employing those skills to problem-solve. What organizations/corporations will the BDC partner with? It goes without saying synergies are a good partner of data science. We will primarily be partnering with nonprofits and community organizations to give students the opportunity to solve real problems. We will partner with a few corporations but our focus is more on finding opportunities for students to gain practical experience. Nonprofits and community organizations are the ideal incubator for our courses. What is the timeline for the launch of the BDC? We’re really excited about this project and we have hit the ground running. We are planning on integrating and offering new data science coursework at the university within the next year. However, BDC facilities won’t be complete until 2023.

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tarting a business right out of college might not have even been Elijah Herrick’s first choice. But as many graduates can attest, plans change. Herrick’s StatStak startup aims to become the new leader in sports analytics as a hub for data for coaches and players. The new company, which is being developed with the help of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, is part of a more extensive effort to get more small businesses off the ground in Nashville. Herrick, one of StatStak’s three founders and its CEO, created the company to streamline the efforts of athletes and coaches to collect, analyze and break down the stats of athletes in their careers.

“I was an economics major at Duke so I was always a little bit involved in Sabermetrics and the behind-the-scenes of what was going on with the data,” Herrick says. “It came down to how can you leverage your data, your video to represent yourself without playing any more physical baseball games. So going through that, working with my agent, working with all the coaching staff that I had currently and in the past to gather up all that data and essentially make my best case, we realized pretty quickly how fractured that system was.” Herrick, a former right-handed pitcher, says it was “pretty eye-opening” to notice how information from a handful of different devices — be it ball tracking, bat tracking, weight and many others — is thrown before coaches who are essentially told, “Hey, make sense of this.” StatStak looks to stand out by personalizing sports analytics and finding creative ways to present some or all of that data to coaches and athletes. “We reach out and work directly with the universities, the tournaments [and] the showcases that are collecting this data,” Herrick says. “We work with them to manage their data within that organization and then to give it to the athletes. So when someone uploads data to StatStak, the university gets to see all of their athletes’ information in the same place —

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managed — [and] get insights out of it. But the athlete also gets their personal data into their own profile.” The latter part stands out: StatStak’s player profiles aren’t tied to a single team. An athlete could be on a number of teams during any given year and StatStak lets them aggregate and carry with them that information — which Herrick says might now be in a Google Drive account or a Dropbox — in a single place. Lipscomb University head baseball coach Brian Ryman says StatStak also has the advantage of being customizable. “If there is a need or want that we want to see, they are going to work with our player development team and try to make that happen inside their program and their apps,” Ryman says. “It is becoming like a one-stop-shop where all these platforms and all these [different] software that we have are basically coming into them. They have bent over backward for us, and I do not want to sound cliché [but] it has been a team effort.”

Herrick and his team of about a dozen are at first targeting the amateur-to-college athletes but have bigger ambitions for the future. “You start looking at the billions of dollars that are invested as far as recruiting scholarships every year,” he says. “That problem is magnified when there are millions of people and thousands of ends they are trying to connect versus thousands of college athletes and 30 MLB teams.” Case in point, he says: Each year, an immense number of tournaments, showcases and other events bring together large numbers of athletes for short periods of time. That gives StatStak the opportunity to give players their own accounts to aggregate information from various platforms and let them carry their data from event to event. “You end up with just as many user IDs and how all those people are being tracked over different devices in different locations,” Herrick says. “StatStak standardizes all that. So if you have bat-tracking and weight room information, we use one universal ID to say,

‘Yes, that is the same Elijah Herrick in the gym, that is swinging a bat, that is hitting a ball on a field. It is the same Eli.’” The mid- to long-term goal, Herrick says, is for StatStak to be for the booming sports analytics market — which research firm Statista predicts will grow from about $2.2 billion in 2020 to $10 billion by 2028 — what payments infrastructure company Plaid is for financial firms. Just as Plaid powers Venmo, Chime and other online payments and banking platforms and connects 11,000 financial institutions on multiple continents, Herrick envisions his team venture becoming a similarly universal standard. “The three-to-five-year impact of StatStak is the democratized information and using the network we are building out to speed up all those different interconnected aspects as well as growing the pie as far as how many people are using insights,” he says, with the goal of making “the way the user interacts with that in general as frictionless as possible.”

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