Fort Worth Inc. - June 2017

FWinc.

OUT OF GAS?

How fast will development adjust to energy disruption and a future of fewer cars?

VIRTUALLY REAL

TCU student turns memories of hospital stays into virtual reality startup.

BURNING RUBBER

What rubber, ranching, restaurants and cigars have in common: Fort Worth's Al Micallef

BACK IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT

Jorge Varela left startups to raise family, heads back to the starting line.

WHITLEY PENN UNDERSTANDS...

Breadth of knowledge and depth of experience are essential in an ever-changing energy industry. Whitley Penn understands the energy industry including its unique accounting and tax challenges as well as opportunities. We work directly with companies to help them achieve their business objectives and goals.

FEATURES

46 Burning Rubber: Fort Worth knows him as the owner of Reata, but there’s more to Al Micallef than a good chicken-fried steak.

54 Out of Gas?: Cars may become a thing of the past – at least, according to one futurist author.

62 Ventures With Values: A TCU student turns her hospital experience into a business venture.

68 Back in the Driver’s Seat: After taking a break from the startup world to raise his children, Jorge Varela returns with new ideas and a new outlook.

9 Consolidated Care: Texas Oncology breaks ground on a new facility.

12 Fit to Scale: Local alternative delivery companies PICKUP and Gozova are scaling up.

14 Comings and Goings: From relocations to new openings, businesses make moves.

16 Face Time: Lauren DoerenBarnett shifts her focus from advertising to helping the homeless.

18 Stay Informed: Five tips to become a better networker.

20 Around Cowtown: Chamber gatherings, banquets and more photos from Fort Worth’s top business events.

( EXECUTIVE LIFE & STYLE )

24 Distinctive Style: Design is life for Fort Worth couple Lauren and Andrew Blake.

28 Off the Clock: Skip the hotel ballroom. These resorts take conference venues from the beach to Broadway.

32 Wine & Dine: Vivo 53 moves out; Mercury Chop House moves in. Mercury Chop House moves out; Waters moves in. What’s next?

34 Gadgets: Four ways to make an app.

36 Health & Fitness: A recipe for an easy, tasty office snack for the days when you feel off-balance.

38 Office Space: An old auto body shop transforms into a hip coworking space.

( COLUMNS / DEPARTMENTS )

74 EO Spotlight: The leader of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization’s Fort Worth Chapter almost became a jazz musician. Then he changed his mind.

76 Business Strategy/Running Toward the Roar: A boy grows up at the Lena Pope Home...and becomes a state district judge.

80 Analyze This/FW Chamber Report: Fort Worth’s transportation

industry is going places.

82 Analyze This/Commercial Real Estate Report: Get to know the 2017 Real Estate Council award winners.

84 Analyze This/Wealth: Financial forecasting and why it’s good for you.

86 Analyze This/Legal and Tax: Is a SAFE startup investment right for you?

88 Analyze This/Insurance: How Trump’s new health secretary may impact home care.

90 Business Leadership/ Successful Entrepreneurship: Seven ways to boost company tenacity.

92 Business Leadership/ Startups: Michael Sherrod talks life as TCU’s entrepreneur in residence.

94 Business Leadership/ Management Tips and Best Practices: How to craft an effective performance appraisal.

96 Day in the Life: Walk through the busy day of Gloria Starling, managing partner at The Capital Grille.

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Outside the Box

Six months ago, I was smoking a $42 Micallef Reserva cigar with Al Micallef at a corner table on the rooftop of his Reata Restaurant, where he shared the story of his newest entrepreneurial venture into cigars. I was there for a guys’ night out party where Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Dallas, a Park Place dealership, was introducing the new Rolls-Royce bespoke limited series edition, with a Stetson Hat Company interior package. Why would a Dallas dealership throw an unveiling in Fort Worth? While many out-of-staters may consider Dallas to be the city that best represents Old West Texas heritage, those from around here know Fort Worth is where the West was won and Dallas is where the East peters out. And where better to announce a Stetson Rolls-Royce partnership than Reata, named after the classic Western “Giant” with Rock Hudson and James Dean.

At 6’1”, the Stetson and Justin-wearing, cigar-smoking, 74-year-old Al Micallef is a poster child for what people think real Texans should look like. If you Google “Old West Texan images,” Micallef’s face might just show up. Micallef grew up in Detroit, but thought he lived in Texas as a child, because the only radio station he could get on his old crystal set was from Del Rio. Micallef arrived in Texas in the early ‘70s when he moved his rubber company Jamak, Inc. to Weatherford. Over the last almost four decades, his businesses have included silicone rubber products, ranching, ranch real estate, development, horses, restaurants and, lately, cigars. (Our feature on Al Micallef begins on page 46.)

Like many entrepreneurs, Micallef is an out-of-the-box thinker. As a kid, he had trouble in school and was a teenager before he taught himself to read. He was never diagnosed, but says he might be dyslexic. Because of his learning disability, he has had to think outside the box his whole life.

When launching his new venture, Micallef Cigars, he could not get his cigars rated. So like any brilliant marketing mind, he gathered 12 friends who had no stake and created the Royal Academy of Cigar Connoisseurs.

These 12 individuals, with various cigarsmoking experiences, including many at the Silver Leaf Cigar Lounge in Fort Worth, rated the Micallefs. The Reserva received a 98 rating. With that, Micallef had Royal Academy of Cigar Connoisseurs rating cards produced and hand-delivered them to the stores carrying Micallef Cigars. The rating changed the trajectory of the cigars, and, according to the Micallef Cigars website, Micallef Cigars are now being sold in eight states, in 41 retail locations.

Not only did the Royal Academy of Cigar Connoisseurs help Micallef get his cigars into more stores, they are now being rated by the big boys.

Micallef thinks his cigar business could do $20 million in sales in the next five years. In a 2012 Fort Worth Magazine interview, Micallef gave this advice: “Love what you’re doing, not what it gives you. Rewards will come if you love what you’re doing and love being the best.” I know Al Micallef loves being the best at what he does, and I suspect because he loves cigars like he does, the rewards will follow.

Hal A. Brown owner/publisher

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( BIZZ BUZZ )

What Everyone's Talking About Around the Water Cooler

Consolidated Care

Comfortable design, improved patient flow among features of new Texas Oncology facility.

BY SAMANTHA CALIMBAHIN

Construction is underway for Texas Oncology’s new cancer center, a consolidation of the organization’s Eighth Avenue, 12th Avenue and Klabzuba facilities. The new facility, located at 500 Henderson St., is expected to open in spring 2018. Texas Oncology will occupy three of the four stories in the 100,000-squarefoot building, with the fourth story used as physician office space. Dallas-based Cambridge Holdings, Inc. is developing the project, which also includes a parking garage.

With a new cancer care facility comes the opportunity to purchase updated equipment, as well as design spaces that are more accommodating and comfortable for patients.

“Sometimes we underestimate just how important it is to simply have a peaceful environment for patients to enjoy,” said Jerry Barker, a radiation oncologist with Texas Oncology. “This transition with a new facility has given us the opportunity to really design with that in mind and try to create an environment that is a healing environment.”

The infusion room on the third floor, for example, will feature “inviting” decor and “homey” lighting, practice director Marta Hansard said. Some treatment areas will be designed to mimic a living room or communal space, while other areas will be more individualized and personal.

“Different patients react differently to treatments,” Hansard said.

Ground broke for Texas Oncology's new Fort Worth facility in April.

“[Some patients] want to be in a more community setting, or they’d like to be in a more private setting, so we have multiple options.”

The new facility also offers potential for growth, with room to add physicians and bring in additional service providers to the medical oncology floor, Hansard said.

Moving also presents the opportunity to purchase updated equipment for radiation and imaging, Barker said.

But perhaps one of the best benefits of the consolidated cancer center, Hansard says, is the ability to easily move patients between treatments.

Barker said it’s not uncommon for cancer patients to move from one facility to another for chemotherapy and radiation treatment, an ordeal that affects not just Texas Oncology patients, but cancer patients everywhere.

“Patients with cancer these days have very complicated diseases that require very complicated care and a multiplicity of specialists,” Barker said. “This can be a lot of different tests, procedures, treatments or therapies, inside and outside our practice. Really, our goal is to take some of this ever-increasing complexity and

simplify it as much as we can.”

In the new facility, patient appointments can be scheduled consecutively, allowing the patient to simply move between rooms and floors in one building, as opposed to traveling among two or three different buildings about half a mile apart from one another.

Texas Oncology facilities are typically consolidated, but Fort Worth was the exception, Barker said. The Fort Worth cancer center was built over time as practices joined and real estate was acquired.

But the organization always had interest in bringing the campuses together, Barker said. So three years ago, Texas Oncology’s physician team, which included Barker, decided to sit down and make plans for a new facility.

“Despite the challenges associated with designing, constructing and moving into a new facility, we really felt like this was so much better for our patients,” Barker said. “They really deserved this.”

The hardest part was finding a location, Hansard said. Texas Oncology was determined to stay in the Medical District, close to partners like Texas Health Harris Methodist and Cancer Care Services of North Texas. Late last year, Texas Oncology secured its spot on Henderson Street.

“It is just south of Interstate 30 in downtown Fort Worth, so very easily accessible for patients who have to travel into Fort Worth from any outlying communities, as well as folks who live right here,” Barker said.

Ground broke for the project in April.

“We are excited about elements of design with the building that really bring a sense of hope and a sense of peace to patients who are struggling with complicated diseases and complicated treatments,” Barker said.

Texas Oncology was founded in 1986. The organization as a whole treats more than 50,000 patients each year.

Texas Oncology currently offers the following treatments, all of which will be consolidated at its Henderson location. The new facility will also include an in-house research laboratory and pharmacy, along with nutrition and social services.

Texas Oncology | Fort Worth 8th Ave.

Radiation oncology

Texas Oncology | Fort Worth 12th Ave.

Chemotherapy and infusion

Genitourinary oncology (treatment of cancers affecting male reproductive organs, as well as male and female urinary systems)

Gynecologic oncology

Immunotherapy

Medical oncology

Texas Oncology | Fort Worth Klabzuba

Medical oncology

Radiation oncology

Rendering of the waiting room at Texas Oncology's new facility.

Rendering of the lobby at Texas Oncology's new facility.

Fit to Scale

Local app-based delivery services PICKUP and Gozova move out of the startup phase and look toward growth.

BY SAMANTHA CALIMBAHIN

Uber-style businesses are everywhere these days, reaching into industries like food and hospitality. The model is also making its way to delivery services through local companies like PICKUP and Gozova, both of which have launched and are looking to grow their Fort Worth footprints.

PICKUP and Gozova work similarly, using an app to connect customers with drivers who could pick up and move items like heavy furniture and appliances. PICKUP launched about two years ago, while Gozova launched its iPhone app last October and Android app in March.

PICKUP, an Addison-based company that serves Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and Austin, is currently “recruiting heavily in Fort Worth,” said Brenda Stoner, PICKUP’s “Chief Good Guy,” as the company’s employees are called. Though PICKUP will not disclose its exact number of drivers in Fort Worth, the company estimates “dozens” and is trying to triple its current number.

“We don’t have enough guys there right now,” Stoner said.

According to PICKUP, business in Fort Worth is expected to quadruple in 2017 over 2016. The app currently has 10,000 active users in all cities it serves.

PICKUP hires “good guys,” Stoner says, as employees go through extensive background checks that cover criteria like truck type, driver insurance, temperament and vehicle safety inspections,

and only 10-15 percent of applicants get hired. Drivers are hired full time or part time and paid between $35-$50 an hour.

While the company focuses on hiring people like firefighters, veterans or first responders, anyone is welcome to apply – like Fort Worth driver Steven Lopez, who joined the company last year. When he’s not working his day job as an internal auditor for coffee company Farmers Brothers, he’s working in business development at PICKUP, as well as making deliveries in his 2013 Chevrolet Silverado.

He says the company does deliveries for several retail partners like Pier 1 Imports, Pottery Barn and Big Lots.

“We have so many opportunities in front of us,” Lopez said. “We just want to actually be a part of this thing because it will continue to grow.”

Gozova, too, is looking toward growth in Fort Worth. The company currently has 35 full-time drivers serving Fort Worth, as well as parts of Arlington and Keller. Many of its Fort Worth customers come from TCU-area apartments like Edge 55 and Century Colonial Park, as well as businesses like Costco.

“We’re having a chicken and egg problem right now,” Gozova founder and CEO Goran Krndija said. “Sometimes we have a lot of demand but not enough drivers. Sometimes we have a lot of drivers and not enough demand.”

That’s why Gozova, though capable of doing instant delivery, has been honing its focus on scheduled deliveries. The company was also recently accredited by the Better Business Bureau and is looking to join the Fort Worth Chamber.

Krndija said he’s fascinated by how the Uber business model has spread.

“How many cars does Uber own? Zero. How many hotels or rooms does Airbnb own? Zero. That’s the interesting part about that,” Krndija said. “You’ve got all these hotels and taxis that people actually own. Then you’ve got companies like us. We own the business [for] people who have trucks.”

And technology isn’t just impacting the delivery service industry, Stoner said.

“People are not going to be willing to wait anymore – technology is disrupting that entire space,” she said. “We are smack in the middle of what’s happening in the world, not only in our industry. We’re using technology to change the way things have been done. The status quo will not work anymore.”

A PICKUP truck

PICKUP and Gozova are quickly becoming part of a greater movement in the technology world. Turn to page 54 to find out how alternative transportation is impacting the future of Fort Worth.

COMINGS & GOINGS

A few Fort Worth businesses are relocating, while new ones are moving in.

BY MOLLY JENKINS

The Shops at Clearfork continues to grow, with numerous tenants recently announced. Five new restaurants are set to move in: Malai Kitchen (a modern Southeast Asian restaurant that offers vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free options), Luna Grill (a fast, casual Mediterranean joint), Mesero (an upscale Tex-Mex restaurant), B&B Butchers and Restaurant (a Houston-based steakhouse opening its second location in Fort Worth), and Fixe (a progressive Southern eatery known for its biscuits). There will also be plenty of entertain-

ment options, with both AMC Theaters and bowling center Pinstripes set to open late 2017. Additionally, custom clothing shops Double R and Q Clothier are among retailers that will join the already-open Neiman Marcus. Home stores Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, Z Gallerie and Arhaus are also expected to open in the fall.

Coworking space-meets-coffee shop Craftwork Coffee Co. opened its second Fort Worth location at 1121 West Magnolia Ave. on April 26. The 1,850-square-foot space features 14 desks, a conference room and a 36seat coffee shop, among other amenities. The space is also open to members at Craftwork’s first location at 4731 Camp Bowie Blvd.

Keller Williams now has an office in West Fort Worth. The local realty firm relocated its 7755 Bellaire Drive South office to 6333 Camp Bowie Blvd. and celebrated its grand opening in March (although it had moved in September 2016). The branch offers full real estate services in residential, rental, farm and

ranch, and commercial divisions. According to Kim Tarver, Keller Williams’ director of business development, the company had been looking to open a space on Camp Bowie for a while to better serve West Fort Worth. Owner Inga Dow also purchased land by Montserrat and plans to build a location there in the next few years.

The building that will become Pinnacle Bank’s future home at 250 West Lancaster Ave. celebrated its grand opening March 10. At press time, construction of the bank itself was expected to wrap up by the end of April. The bank will span 8,500 square feet, while the rest of the building totals 160,000 square feet with 130 residential units, of which 30 percent are occupied.

Law firm Dorsett Johnson & Swift has moved out of the Knights of Pythias Building in Sundance Square and into the Cassidy Building, a few blocks away at 407 Throckmorton St. The 4,000-square-foot location is double the size of its previous location, featuring seven offices, three conference rooms, a parlor and lounge.

Dorsett Johnson & Swift

The Shops at Clearfork

A Hand Up to the Homeless

Lauren Doeren-Barnett moves from working in advertising and marketing to building a nonprofit aimed at bringing homeless people to self-sufficiency.

BY SCOTT NISHIMURA

Lauren Doeren-Barnett was working in development for a Fort Worth architecture firm when she took her daughter in 2014 to volunteer at Beautiful Feet Ministries, a nonprofit benefitting homeless men.

“I quickly realized how wrong I was about the homeless population,” says Doeren-Barnett, who continued to volunteer for Beautiful Feet and began to put out feelers for a job in nonprofits.

Coincidence intervened. Doeren-Barnett teamed up with businessman Bob McCarthy, whom she’d met while working at an ad agency on a campaign for the Entrepreneurs’ Organization, which McCarthy belongs to. McCarthy was moving his businesses to a building he bought in the heart of East Lancaster Street and was hiring homeless people in exchange for an incentive from the city.

“Bob hired the first five people and realized they needed more than just a job,” says Doeren-Barnett, who came to work for McCarthy in October 2014 and began working on putting together a nonprofit.

The Leg Up Program was soon born, with Doeren-Barnett, 34, as its executive director. The goal: to help bring the homeless to self-sufficiency through a rigorous program that starts with self-assessment and moves through courses and workshops in soft and professional skills; personal, professional and financial “visioning”; working with mentors; building resumes and interview skills; and getting jobs.

Leg Up worked with 60 people in both 2015 and 2016, placing 27 of 60 in the first year, and 30 of 60 in the second year. So far this year, Leg Up is working with two groups of 10 people in each and is starting a cohort with the nonprofit Samaritan House.

Leg Up recently won a $600,000, threeyear grant that will cover payroll and taxes for Doeren-Barnett and three new employees. Leg Up wants to move to serving 250-300 clients per year.

The organization has hired one social worker and an administrative assistant and is seeking another social worker.

Leg Up doesn’t work with sex offenders, and its clients must stay on their prescribed medications. Social service agencies and one apartment complex screen potential clients for Leg Up.

The growing mentorship piece of the program launched in March last year – Leg Up has 14 volunteer mentors, and DoerenBarnett is looking for more – helps Leg Up keep track of its clients.

At its graduation ceremonies, Leg Up clients receive a “key” to the program’s job bank, updated daily. “They have a job log where they wrote each position they applied for,” Doeren-Barnett says. “I’ll call and advocate for that person.”

Looking forward, Leg Up plans to launch a fundraising campaign after it’s done with its new hires, Doeren-Barnett says. It’s also planning an eventual move next door to another of McCarthy’s properties, a strip center at 1110 E. Lancaster. Leg Up will be looking for donors to help renovate the 3,500-square-foot building. “We’ll put your name on a plaque,” she says.

Casting the Net

Five Tips to Become a Better Networker

BY LAURA BELPEDIO

Happy hours, after-hour mixers and social events are old school. Networking has become a different game, and in today’s world, a more beneficial way to connect and build relationships may be through volunteering or getting involved in a community program in which your interests align with those you’re with, according to Staci Kirpach, founder of EMIT Strategies & Solutions and previous member of the SteerFW board of directors.

“I think that getting involved in some of the community groups and organizations or philanthropic efforts are always a great way to go about networking,” she said. “I think that provides a little bit more of a substantial avenue than events like an after-hours mixer.”

Here are a few networking tips from Kirpach and Harriet Harral, executive director of Leadership Fort Worth.

1. FIND SOMETHING YOU LIKE. “I think the best kind of networking comes when you’re connected, and you have the opportunity to get connected to people who share an interest,” Harral said. “Volunteering is a great way to achieve this. If you are involved in or working for some organization with a group of people doing something worthwhile, you’re going to find other people that share that kind of passion, and it connects you at a deeper level than just handing somebody a business card.”

2. DO YOUR HOMEWORK.

“Do research so that you know something about the people, individual, or group that are in an industry, a career, a community, or a structure that you’re interested in so that you have something to talk about with them,” Harral said.

3. WORK CONNECTIONS YOU ALREADY HAVE. “I know networking is about meeting new people, but if you start with who’s in your existing network and find out what they’re doing and how you can better support

them and the group that they’re involved in, or what their interests are, then you’re more likely to land at places that are a natural fit with your goal and interests,” Kirpach said.

4. BE GENUINELY INTERESTED IN OTHERS. “I really think that a misconception of networking is that it’s superficial or selfserving,” Kirpach said. “I think you need to go into a networking opportunity with the mindset of getting to know the other people in your community and wanting to genuinely get to know and learn more about who they are, what they do, and how they’re making the city a better place for their community, and then taking the opportunity to share with them what you do. It becomes a much more intentional use of time.”

5. KEEP SHOWING UP. “Rome wasn’t built in a day, and relationships aren’t built in one afterhour mixer,” Kirpach said. “You have to continue to be consistent and find a few groups that feel natural to you and then continue to work with them over a period of time.”

(1) Bring Meetings Home Luncheon

The Fort Worth Metropolitan Black Chamber of Commerce and Fort Worth Convention & Visitors Bureau together hosted its annual Bring Meetings Home Luncheon on Feb. 23. Rev. Sultan Cole (right) and Revealed World Ministry Choir.

(2) Cultural District Alliance Annual Meeting

The Cultural District Alliance’s Annual Meeting, moderated by FW Inc. executive editor Scott Nishimura, took place Feb. 15. The event examined how the Cultural District impacts the future of Fort Worth.

Left to right: Stephanie Perryman, Rodney Niemuth, Mayor Betsy Price. Photo by Brian Luenser.

(3) Women in Leadership

The Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber hosted its Women in Leadership Breakfast on April 13. The event highlighted four women who shared their experiences as community leaders and candidly discussed the risks and rewards associated with their experiences.

Left to right: Ish Arebalos, Jennifer Treviño, Rachel Vogel Marker, Ashley Paz, John Hernandez, Ann Zadeh, and Pilar CandiaJuarez.

(4) Near Southside Annual Banquet

The Near Southside Inc. annual banquet was held on March 4 at the Omni Hotel. The topic of the night was autonomous vehicles.

Left to right: Judy Jones, Leila Peeples, Tina Smith, Sam Shafeeq, Carole Ann Fleming, Cathy Lewis. Photo by Laura Belpedio. 1 23 4 5

Left to right: Hayden Blackburn, Brad Nelsen, Tony Seba, and Dr. Christopher Poe. Photo by Tina Howard.

(5)

Business After Hours

The Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce held its Business After Hours event March 10 at the Fort Worth Magazine offices. Guests dined on hors d’oeuvres by Z’s Café while listening to live music by Bryan Lucas.

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Marriage by Design

How Lauren and Andrew Blake weave design into their marriage and their busy professional lives.

BY SAMANTHA CALIMBAHIN / PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALEX LEPE

Lauren and Andrew Blake are looking for a shade of blue. Not just any shade of blue. A bright, neon aqua sort of blue. They’ve only seen it in places like Morocco or Mexico. They’ve taken pictures of it. But when they try to

replicate it back home in the states, they just can’t seem to get it exactly how they saw it.

“We think it has to do with the sunlight,” Lauren said.

It’s been about six or seven years since they first saw that blue, and until today,

they’re still looking for it, and they still talk about it. Design is how the Fort Worth couple finds common ground, and it translates to their professional lives. Andrew is a real estate developer, the founder and managing partner of Fort Worth-based firm Presidio Interests. Lauren is a freelance digital designer, running her own company that specializes in branding and graphic design.

“I’m fascinated with urban design, how cities function, and how the buildings and the blocks are designed,” Andrew said. “Her fascination extends to not only the exterior of the buildings, but the interior of the buildings, and into graphics and those kinds of things.”

Lauren admits, as evidenced by their ongoing search for the shade of blue, she and her husband often get “nerdy” about design. The topic is, after all, what brought the couple together in the first place.

Lauren and Andrew met in 2006 at a holiday party inside what was then a newly built penthouse in The Tower downtown. Eager to check out the new space, Andrew attended the party and met Lauren, who was working with Fort Worth real estate agency The Westover Group at the time. A conversation sparked between the two about how the space should be finished out. Lauren wanted modern – something “slick and cool” for a downtown penthouse.

Andrew not only agreed, but was also impressed.

“She was very candid about her opinion about it,” he said. “I thought, ‘Boy, she’s just calling it like she sees it, and she’s exactly right.’ ”

Lauren’s first impression of Andrew?

“I thought he was really handsome,” she said.

They married in 2009, the same year Lauren left real estate to start her own design company.

For the Blakes, design doesn’t stay at work. They both have a penchant for house

A FLY FISHING RETAILER

HIS

My style can be described as… “Automatic.”

My favorite shops are... D. Jones Clothiers, J. Crew, Service Menswear in Austin, Friend in New Orleans Style advice? “It’s better to own one suit that fits really well rather than five that don’t fit at all.”

HERS

My style can be described as… “I like bright colors – like, solid bright colors. I like to keep it simple and throw in something unexpected.”

My favorite shops are… Esther Penn, Neiman Marcus, Canary in Dallas Style advice? “I shop when I’m on vacation. It’s one of the joys when you’re on vacation to get to do a little shopping and bring back something that you can’t find here.”

flipping, renovating three homes together within 10 years – whether it needed renovation or not. Lauren describes their house today as “modern with leanings toward mid-century,” with neutral textures and “masculine” furniture for a “Mad Meninspired vibe” in the living room.

“We just cannot help ourselves,” she said. “We move into something and eventually do something to it.”

Their eye for design reflects in what they wear as well. For Andrew, style is a straightforward deal – he did away with his tendency to impulsively buy ill-fitting clothes just because they were on sale and now takes more care in finding a wellfitting suit. Sometimes, he likes to throw in something fun, like Kermit the Frog socks.

“Anything to get a smile out of our two boys,” Andrew said. The couple has two sons, ages 6 and 3.

Lauren describes her style as “all or nothing,” either “very casual” or “very dressed up.” She says she likes to keep her clothing simple, opting to go for something more dramatic in shoes or jewelry.

A lot of times, how the Blakes dress depends on whom they’re meeting with.

For Lauren, being in the creative industry sometimes requires her to show personal style, but since many of her clients come from word of mouth, she says she doesn’t necessarily need to dress up for a meeting.

“I don’t feel the pressure to put on a pantsuit before I meet a client, and I don’t think I’m expected to either,” she said.

Andrew says Fort Worth, as a city, lends itself to more casual dress.

“In Los Angeles, it’s OK for 50-year-old men to wear baseball caps and tennis shoes in a professional setting,” he said. “It’s part what industry you’re in, it’s part who you’re meeting with, but also the city you’re in, so it varies widely. I feel like Fort Worth’s in the middle. It’s casual, but it’s a really unpretentious city.”

They’re big fans of local boutiques, citing shops like Esther Penn and Pax & Parker as favorites. They also like shopping when they travel, finding pieces at shops that can’t be found anywhere else.

Or colors that can’t be found anywhere else – like that one pesky shade of blue.

“Every time we try to replicate it in paint, it’s never the same,” Lauren said. “Whenever we’re traveling somewhere, and [Andrew] sees that blue, he’s like ‘There’s the blue!’ And I’ll take a picture of it. It’s funny how after all these years, we’re still talking about that shade of blue.”

While Andrew describes his style as “automatic,” Lauren likes to contrast dramatic patterns with solid colors.

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Conference Call

Six resorts that offer conference venues that move away from the ordinary ballroom

BY OLIVIA HEINEN

Executives don’t have to be counting down the hours until dismissal while attending a business meeting at a luxurious hotel. The venue can make all the difference. Fort Worth Convention and Visitors Bureau CEO Bob Jameson says three features make a great conference venue – access, functionality and food product. But an atmosphere with an interesting design, decor or personality can even further up the ante. From the Texas Hill Country to Times Square, here are a few resorts that do just that.

HILTON SANDESTIN BEACH GOLF

RESORT & SPA – Miramar Beach, Florida hiltonsandestinbeach.com A trip to a beach is more fun than a trip to

a conference. Hilton Sandestin combines the two, allowing meetings to take place on the South Walton beach itself. If the sound of crashing waves is too loud, there are four other outdoor venues to choose from. Sunset Deck, Sunrise Deck and Barefoot’s Deck overlook the beach, while the Emerald Pool Courtyard overlooks the resort’s main pool deck.

SANCTUARY ON CAMELBACK MOUNTAIN

RESORT AND SPA –Paradise Valley, Arizona sanctuaryoncamelback. com

Sanctuary offers an indoor/ outdoor ballroom and boardrooms with a view of

Paradise Valley’s desert and mountains. The resort also offers eight private homes that can be used for corporate retreats, with amenities including game rooms and secluded patios. Just note that cacti are not take-home souvenirs.

Rough Creek Lodge & Resort

Hilton Sandestin Beach Golf Resort & Spa

THE GANT – Aspen, Colorado destinationhotels.com/hotels-andresorts/the-gant

The Molly Campbell Conference Center at The Gant offers a panoramic view of the Rocky Mountains. Its 1,500-squarefoot rooftop terrace is at the base of Aspen Mountain and surrounded by the Elk Mountains. The conference center also includes a specialty café. Feel free to explore the mountains during breaks, as the hotel has its own ski clubs, but steer clear of any approaching blizzards.

ROUGH

CREEK LODGE & RE-

SORT – Glen Rose, Texas roughcreek.com

“A critical component is to make sure that you have the highest or most current technology available,” Jameson said. One hotel he recommends is located just south of Dallas-Fort Worth – the Rough Creek Lodge & Resort, which has six meeting areas with high-speed wireless internet, drop-down screens, lavalier microphones and other technology features. The indoor conference rooms come in various configurations, from theater to U-shape. The resort boasts outdoor facilities as well – the Outdoor Terrace overlooks Mallard Lake, while The Pavilion can be open air or enclosed.

NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS

– New York City, New York marriott. com/hotels/travel/nycmq-new-york-

marriott-marquis

New York City is home to Broadway, Broadway is home to the Marriott Marquis, and the Marriott Marquis is home to Broadway Lounge. In addition to serving as a meeting space, the lounge is a 6,000-square-foot observation area of Times Square. For smaller and more private meetings, there is the 1,977-squarefoot Liberty Ballroom on the eighth floor, which overlooks the famous Shubert Alley. Nestled inside the Marriott Marquis is the Marquis Theatre, where Broadway shows play regularly.

HOTEL ZAZA – Houston, Texas

hotelzaza.com/houston

Hotel ZaZa is just four hours away from Fort Worth and has 14 conference venues with different personalities. The Grapevine, Imagination and Room with a View allow its occupants to see the Houston skyline. Poolside at ZaZa – well, the location is explained there. The Conspiracy Room is designed as a speakeasy from the Prohibition Era, so it is fitting that there is a wine collection in the Vault Room next door. The Hemingway room pays tribute to Ernest Hemingway’s hunting and adventure travels, noted with animal

print carpet and hunting trophies on the fireplace mantel. The other conference rooms include the Déjà Vu, Fishbowl, Fountain Room, Gallery, and Phantom Ballroom, each with its own distinct features.

The Gant

Sanctuary on Camelback Mountain Resort and Spa

New York Marriott Marquis

SHELBY BRUHN President

Valliance Bank Fort Worth

Culinary-Go-Round

When one restaurant leaves, another opens. Here are two restaurateurs who did it right.

BY SAMANTHA CALIMBAHIN

Fort Worth restaurants like Mercury Chop House and Waters have been riding on a carousel of sorts.

When Vivo 53 closed its location in The Tower last year, Mercury Chop House moved in, picking up from its previous location at 301 Main St., where it had been for more than 15 years. Then Waters moved to Mercury Chop House’s old space, leaving the seafood restaurant’s former location in the West 7th development up for grabs.

Whoever occupies Waters’ former space is yet to be seen, but nonetheless, the trend of restaurants moving around in Fort Worth doesn’t make the process any easier. It’s a big deal, with many factors and logistics to consider, not to mention the money and employees that can be lost in the process.

That is, unless you do it right.

Take Mercury Chop House, for example. Owner Zack Moutaouakil first opened his steakhouse at 301 Main St. in 2000. But in the course of 15 years, he

says, things like the air conditioning and plumbing in the space had aged, making it difficult to stay.

“It was time,” Moutaouakil said. He figured that the best way to keep customers was to not move too far. Since Mercury Chop House had become somewhat of a downtown institution over the years, Moutaouakil said, he was determined to keep the restaurant downtown. Fortunately, Vivo 53 left a vacancy in The Tower, just a six-minute walk away.

Getting paperwork done quickly was another important factor, Moutaouakil said. He began applying for a liquor license and other permits early – even before the lease was finalized. It was a gamble, Moutaouakil said, but it saved a lot of time during the moving process. He said the move happened in “record timing” – Mercury Chop House closed in August 2016, got the lease in November, and reopened to the public in December,

Photo courtesy Mercury Chop House Facebook page

just in time for the holiday rush.

The new location turned out to be a perfect fit, Moutaouakil said. No longer would Mercury Chop House have to rely on The Worthington Renaissance Fort Worth Hotel to bring in customers; the restaurant now serves a more consistent customer base with The Tower’s residents.

“People live there,” said Moutaouakil, who is currently planning a second Mercury Chop House location for Arlington. “These are wellto-do customers that every restaurant wants.”

And in turn, the space left behind by Mercury Chop House eventually became Waters’ new home.

Sundance Square had approached Chef Jon Bonnell about the possibility of moving his restaurant from West 7th to downtown, almost serendipitously, as Waters’ lease was almost up at West 7th.

“West 7th was a great spot. We really enjoyed our time down there,” Bonnell said. “But when we got an offer to go to Sundance Square, it was just too hard to pass up the amount of foot traffic, the amount of office space down there, the hotels, the plaza, the convention business – it just adds up to one of the most high foot-traffic areas in the city.”

The downtown audience seemed like a better fit for Waters too, Bonnell said.

“[In West 7th], a slightly more casual, baroriented place might do a little better because it’s become an extremely young, hip and trendy area,” he said. “We typically shoot more for the fine dining crowd.”

So Waters closed its West 7th location in August 2016. The move wasn’t without its struggles, though. Since Mercury Chop House’s former space was an older building (it was built in the early 1900s), the project faced delays due to construction. Eventually, Waters was able to reopen downtown and celebrate its grand opening April 10.

Bonnell’s advice for moving? “Make sure the move is worth it.”

“It’s very similar to closing and starting over,” Bonnell said. “To move a restaurant really takes more than most people would probably believe, financially and physically. It’s a whole ‘nother opening. A whole new set of problem-solving.”

READY TO GO?

Waters’ Jon Bonnell and Mercury Chop House’s Zack Moutaouakil offer their tips for moving a restaurant.

Be transparent with your staff. Moving a restaurant often means being closed for several months, and being closed means employees will be out of work for the same amount of time, which poses the risk of losing them to other jobs during the moving process.

Moutaouakil says openly communicating with your employees about the move, as well as offering additional benefits, builds their trust and encourages them to stay when the restaurant reopens. “The good thing that happened to me was, I have all my staff,” he said. “Even though I was closed for four months, they all got jobs somewhere else, but they all came back. Every single one of them.”

Start your paperwork early, if possible. Paperwork for things like permits and liquor licenses can be time-consuming.

Moutaouakil took a risk by filing the paperwork before

finalizing the lease, but it paid off. “If you don’t get [the lease], you’re going to lose money. Well, that’s a chance we take,” he said. “But if I get it, I’ve gained three or four weeks. For me, a week was a lot of time.”

Weigh

the cost.

Moving also means leaving behind money spent on things like kitchen equipment and the finish out of the previous space, Bonnell said. “If it’s a spatula or a pan, and I can pick it up, I can take it with me,” he said. “But the walk-in refrigerator and freezer, which are very expensive and have to be installed and engineered into the building, you don’t take those with you, but you’re going to need a new one at the other place. You leave some money on the table when you decide to leave a spot.”

How to Make an App for That

These days it seems there is an app for everything. Despite popular belief, acquiring one for your business isn’t as hard as it may seem.

BY MOLLY JENKINS

With every big technology update, there is a shift in the business world.

Many companies are jumping on the bandwagon, evolving their businesses digitally through mobile applications, or apps.

Fort Worth’s own Righteous Foods, for example, recently developed an app that allows customers to order their food in advance. The app will also eventually incorporate a delivery service.

Chef and owner Lanny Lancarte said he often investigates what innovative ideas are working in larger markets in order to “stay ahead of the curve.” For Lancarte, the decision to create an app was beyond convenience or following a trend – it was purely a practical move.

“I think people are connected to their phones 24 hours a day,” he said. “The easier you can make people’s lives, which are already busy, the better.”

Creating an app is relatively simple, Lancarte said. Here are four ways to create an app that can advance your business and aid your customers.

Use a customizable, predeveloped app platform. Third-party companies with customizable, pre-developed app platforms are

one of the routes businesses can take when developing an app. In Righteous Foods’ case, the restaurant partnered with thirdparty company ChowNow, which uses pre-developed app software that can be easily customized and turned into a platform unique to the company using it. Righteous Foods’ app features the restaurant’s own logo, content and design.

Not all pre-developed apps emphasize the company’s individual brand, however. For example, MINDBODY Inc. (used by Fort Worth’s own CycleBar) can help cre-

ate apps that make the company’s brand highly visible, similar in style to Righteous Foods’ app. But businesses can also join the MINDBODY network, making them visible to customers searching for fitness centers via the MINDBODY app. The company’s brand is less visible, but the app still works nonetheless.

Hire an outside developer. Businesses can also create a personalized app by turning to a freelance developer or app development firm. For this route, it is important to have a solid idea of the app’s purpose and lay out a plan that can be discussed with the developer.

Develop the app in-house. If a company is lucky enough to have someone skilled in app development, then an app can be made in-house.

For Booster Fuels, a Seattle startup that now has a branch in North Texas, an app is essential to its business – customers use the app to tell Booster Fuels what gas they want, where they want it and when. Then the company delivers the gas right to the customers’ cars.

Booster Fuels had the in-house expertise of Diego Netto, an app developer and software engineer.

Netto developed a fully functioning app in around 90 days, said John Parker, head of operations and growth at Booster Fuels.

“In a very quick time, we went from nothing to having an app on the App Store,” he said.

Use a simplified app program. Simplified programs like AppMakr, iBuildApp and GoodBarber help nonsoftware-oriented users make an app on their own. These programs don’t require the high cost or skillset of an app developer. However, the money saved may reflect in the quality of the app, as the app will likely not include as many features or advanced design aspects.

Raising the Bar

BY KENDALL LOUIS

On a particularly busy Wednesday morning, in the throes of managing the combination of an overloaded work day with a sick child and an unavailable nanny, a cookbook

made its way across my desk entitled “Life in Balance.” While the book and its title, by popular Australian home cook and author Donna Hay, reference a balanced diet without the need for an actual diet, its contents provide a solution for both life and nutrition,

particularly a section on power snacks. Items like Cocoa, Banana, Date and Cashew Bars; Peach and Coconut Chia Snacks; and Seed and Date bars provide the perfect make-at-home, grab-and-go snack options.

But the recipe for Apricot, Quinoa and Almond Bars particularly stood out for its use of spelt, an ancient grain that’s high in protein and easy to digest. Make these bars and keep them in the kitchen, or bring them to work for days that feel particularly off-balance.

Apricot, Quinoa and Almond Bars

• ½ cup quinoa flakes

• ½ cup flaked almonds

• ¼ cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds)

• ½ cup rolled oats

• 1¼ cups chopped dried apricots

• ½ cup desiccated coconut

• ½ cup wholemeal spelt flour

• ½ cup vegetable or nut oil

• ¾ cup maple syrup

• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 320 F. Line a 7-by-11inch tin with nonstick baking paper and set aside.

2. Place the quinoa flakes, almonds, pepitas and oats on a baking tray, toss to combine and bake for 10 minutes or until lightly toasted. Place in a large bowl, add the apricot, coconut, flour, oil, maple syrup and cinnamon and mix well to combine. Press the mixture firmly into the prepared tin, and bake for 40–45 minutes or until the slice is golden and firm to touch. Allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Slice into bars to serve. Store bars in an airtight container for up to one week.

MAKES 16

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SHARED SPACES

A former auto body shop is now a favored Fort Worth coworking space for small business owners and entrepreneurs.

BY MOLLY JENKINS / PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALEX LEPE

A chalkboard serves as a wall in coLAB's common area.

Working from home has its perks, but it doesn’t have the same vibe of a big community. coLAB combines the perks of personal space with the energy of a community to create the ideal work environment.

coLAB coworking space sits at 262 Carroll St. – near an area busy with car dealerships and auto body shops – so it isn’t too surprising that the 9,000-square-foot building was once an auto body shop itself.

Blake Panzino, an entrepreneur, founded coLAB in August 2013. He and his wife Meggan arrived from Chicago ready to raise a new family. He was in need of a workspace outside of his home.

“I wanted a cool office space, but I also wanted people to be around,” he said.

Panzino found himself bored with every office space he saw, when he came across the old auto body shop. An avid fan of older buildings with unreplicable design, he wanted to save the aged industrial vibe of the building.

So the Panzinos got to work designing the coLAB space themselves. Blake credits Meggan with helping him add feminine touches to balance the gritty, masculine vibe.

The result is a chic-meets-industrial aesthetic found throughout the building. Brick walls make up the majority of the building’s exterior, and the inside is a mixture of concrete flooring, wood finishes, and bright pops of energy from decadent chandeliers and colorful detailing.

“I didn’t want to tear something down, and I found an auto body shop that was slated to be torn down,” he said. “We kept the garage doors to keep it functional, while at the same time, a nod to the past.”

The garage doors now function as large windows inside the common area, which includes communal workspace and a kitchen. Additionally, there are countertop seats placed on the garage doors for anyone who prefers a view outside the office while working.

“That building had a very rare, rough past as far as design,” Panzino said. “We wanted to retain that kind of grittiness, that warehouse feel, but at the same time make it suitable to be class A office space.”

A short walk down a ramp just off the left of the main entryway leads tenants into the spacious yet cozy communal area. The kitchen stays stocked with free coffee from local roasters. The common area

A hallway lined with red phone booths and black lockers leads to the largest office suite.

Main entrance

Conference room

adds a dose of modern to the industrial space with dainty white and grey wallpaper and a sputnik chandelier. A dark navy rug anchors the room with a rustic wood coffee table paired with camel brown leather couches. A large colorful world map is hung in the center of the main wall, which consists entirely of wood paneling. A black chalkboard sits above a row of deep chocolate-brown leather booths and dark wood tables on the opposite wall. Exposed pipes and cement floors add to the industrial vibe.

An adjacent conference room, up for grabs to any tenant, buzzes with energy – a result of the bright orange dry-erase board, white walls, and another elegant chandelier. White swivel desk chairs, a TV for presentations, and a long wooden conference table complete the room.

The common space and bathrooms are strategically placed in the center of the building to promote “spontaneous bump-ins” and create “forced serendipity” between tenants, Panzino said.

A funky lobby greets guests. A moose head sits dead center on the wall behind the desk, juxtaposed against the same dainty wallpaper found in the common area. Above the desk are the brightly lit bold letters, W-O-R-K, and across from the desk is another orange dryerase board covered in various events and notes.

Against the wall across from the main doors are three bright-red phone booths that practically beg for someone to step inside and phone a friend. Adjacent to the phone booths is the largest private suite, which is 1,000 square feet.

At coLAB each company furnishes and designs its own space. The tenants’ design elements vary from classic wooden office spaces to hipster chic. One office, with a bike inside, hints at the tenant’s preferred method of transport.

“We want people to be proud that they work at coLAB but not feel like they work for coLAB,” said Panzino. “We want each of their spaces to feel like their own unique space.”

Two main hallways are lined with office suites, and white walls have bold and motivational sayings written in black script. One script reads, “Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, only this time more wisely.”

But the building’s design is not the only motivating element at coLAB – the people help too.

“People are inviting and engaging,” Panzino said, adding that there’s good energy at coLAB, as tenants are overall friendly and like to help each other.

“It depends what day it is, but there is typically a good buzz of creation going on,” he said.

Businesses have already grown out of coLAB, and the common area space provides a great area for people to meet and realize their skills combine well, which can lead to a new business venture itself, Panzino said.

“It’s geared toward people who just miss those interactions of being in an office space but who also want something that reflects their personality,” he said.

Another coLAB location, with new design elements and a new crop of tenants, is set to open in Dallas in a few months.

Main lobby

coLAB is located on Carroll Street.

Lobby and ramp to common area

Leader.

Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine

As a Tarleton student, Dr. Karla Dick majored in pre-med and played basketball for the TexAnns. She credits her college student-athlete experience with teaching her the time management skills and self-discipline necessary to graduate in the Top 10 of her medical school class and earn a spot in the prestigious John Peter Smith residency program.

Her career in family medicine allows her to diagnose and treat ailments that affect young and old, as well as incorporating education and all-important prevention strategies into her patient care.

Deciding to divorce is one of the most important decisions a person can face so it makes sense to know your options.

“

One option is traditional court room litigation. Another option is collaborative law divorce.”

Although attorney Stephanie Foster Gilbert is prepared to be the warrior in your court room battle as she has been in thousands of Tarrant County divorce cases over the past 25 years, her preference is to be peacemaker in your interest–based negotiations through the dignified, private, child–protecting process known as collaborative law divorce which involves no court.

Stephanie Foster Gilbert is confident that the collaborative law process is a powerful way to generate creative solutions in family law disputes while minimizing financial and emotional damage to the couple and their children all the while promoting post–divorce psychological and financial health of the restructured family.

As a family law mediator and one of the first Tarrant County attorneys trained in collaborative law, attorney Stephanie Foster Gilbert will help you navigate through your divorce options and zealously represent you through the process of your choice.

BURNING RUBBER

Al Micallef parlays a lifelong rubber products play into ranching, horses, restaurants, and, lately, cigars. It’s put 250 children of his employees through college. And he's not done yet.

BY SCOTT NISHIMURA / PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALEX LEPE

Al Micallef, at his favorite Fort Worth hangout, the Silver Leaf Cigar Lounge downtown.

ALPINE – It’s dinnertime on a Thursday at the original Reata restaurant in downtown Alpine overlooking Texas’ Davis Mountains, the place is crowded, and owner Al Micallef is at the bar, having his usual Coke Zero. This is a roundabout spot for a kid who grew up in Detroit; hated school and founded five businesses before he graduated 12th grade; went to work for a rubber products company in his early 20s and ended up owning it; moved to escape Michigan’s high wages; chose Texas because the only radio station he raised on his old crystal set was Wolfman Jack’s; wound up in Weatherford because he stopped at the city’s

DQ while en route to see a site in Mineral Wells and the guy in line behind him was Weatherford’s city manager; bought a ranch because he always wanted a ranch; opened Reata because he tired of Alpine's Pizza Hut; and went into horse racing and polo because they were big adventures. And one thing: Al Micallef loves to turn his adventures into businesses.

Dinner’s done and the ribeyes are gone from the gazebo at the rear of the Reata patio, and Micallef’s enjoying a cigar. It’s a $42 premium Micallef Reserva. Last year, Micallef was enjoying another cigar at his downtown Fort Worth hangout, the Silver Leaf Cigar Lounge, when two guys from the Gomez Sanchez family, Nicaraguan cigar makers since 1934, pulled up and broke down outside. They had cigars on them. They met Al. A partnership was born.

It’s hard to imagine that Micallef didn’t grow up in Texas, even though his accent is unmistakably Midwestern. At breakfast on his 20,000-acre CF Ranch the next morning, Micallef runs into an employee's son who’s about to graduate from high school.

“Where are you going to school?” Micallef inquires. “Probably Angelo,” the boy replies. If so, he’ll become one of the more than 250 children of employees who Micallef has put through public college and vocational schools, something he started doing after he began receiving community requests for donations.

“I thought, I love to help people, but why don’t I help the people that help me?” Micallef says later. Even if things have tightened up at some of Micallef’s businesses due to recession, supplier pressure, Obamacare and the like, this is a benefit Micallef has always

retained, and it might say something about the loyalty he's built among employees, some of whom have been with him for decades.

Later in the morning, Micallef is ranging across the ranch in a Jeep Wrangler Sport, no doors, no roof, no windshield, to watch a calf castration and branding operation underway. (Queue the Rock Hudson long shot, cloud of dust.) “Yeah,” Micallef, 74, says. “The thing about not having a windshield is sometimes you get to chew on some cow shit.”

First Business: Sand and Ajax Micallef grew up in what he characterizes as a “lower middle-class” family in Michigan. His dad was a parts picker for Ford Motor Co., meaning he picked, packaged, and sent parts to dealers. His mom made custom drapes.

Al Micallef wanted more. “He has an incredibly intense mind,” says Amanda Micallef, 40, one of the three children of Al and Jane Micallef, in business in Los Angeles, having co-founded a digital magazine called Arsenic that has 1.1 million Instagram followers. “He doesn’t just buy a restaurant and pay somebody to run it. When he bought the ranch, he wanted to understand everything about the ranch, even welding the gate.”

Micallef demonstrated as much when he flew to Los Angeles for a tutorial on social media at Arsenic and ended up investing in it. “At the end of the day, he said, ‘What do you need?’” Amanda Micallef says. “We gave him a number. He said, ‘Well, I’ll give you three times that.’ He became our first investor.”

Micallef’s first business was selling a homemade mix of sand and Ajax he marketed as rust cleaner, going door to door with it in his red wagon. “My bike fenders were a little rusty,” he says. “I couldn’t have been more than 6 or 7.”

He launched his next business when his uncle gave him an 8-millimeter movie projector. Micallef had three movies, including a Hopalong Cassidy classic, and he threw parties at his home where kids could throw darts at balloons. “After about four weekends, the mothers of the neighborhood called my mother and said I was taking their kids’ allowances, so I had to get out of that business,” he says.

Because he was in Catholic school, Micallef got out of school for the summer two weeks ahead of the public school kids. So he set up lemonade stands in the neighborhood and hired other kids to work for him.

Then later in high school, while working at a grocery store, Micallef came up with an idea to set up a dance club in a vacant space next door for friends. He and a partner sold cokes and potato chips and charged

Al Micallef and son Mike on the roof of their Reata Restaurant in downtown Fort Worth

50 cents cover on weekends, bringing in a D.J.

and I d leased it d from t them,” m he says. e

tner,” Micallef says.

“I had a financial kind of guy who was a partner,” Micallef says. “He was what you would call a geek today.”

Micallef even f figurred n out d how to w make money y a g number of roundtrips. Emptying his g tr

,000 a t year. ecalling his g father e that kind of

Micallef recalls he and his partner made $30,000 profit a year. “My father took me to a priest,” Micallef says, recalling his father never made more than $5,000 in a year. “I made that kind of money; he thought I was in a racket.”

Next, Micallef ran a Christmas tree lot, using the grocer’s parking lot. After a while, the puzzled store owner asked Micallef how he was pricing the trees. “I said, ‘By the price of the car,’” Micallef recalls. “If it’s a guy in a Cadillac, it’s a $15-$20 tree. If it’s a little family in a Ford, it would be a $3 tree.”

Micallef even figured out how to make money on the move, making a number of roundtrips. Emptying his truck in Weatherford, Micallef reloaded with watermelons and sold them in Detroit.

Micallef reloaded with watermelons h and sol d

“It’s all in the gut,” Mike Micallef, 42, another of the Micallef children – all grew up in Fort Worth – and an ex-hedge fund manager who returned to the city to help run Reata and the family’s other businesses, says of his dad. “I’m more of a numbers guy, but to him, it’s a gut feeling. You really do see how a couple of products

“It’s all in l the gutt,” , e Mike Mic i allef, 42, 2 ano n ther o r children – n all grew l up in Fort Worth – h and an d exager who r returrneed to the e city to run Reata n an a other businessees, sayys of his dad a “I’m more m of a n to himm, it’s a gut t You u do see how e a w c with t margi g n h can a cha h ngge n your profitability.”

Micallef says he viewed opportunities differently, not knowing how to read until he was a teenager, when he taught himself. “I go to see the Marfa Lights; I think, why no popcorn and lemonade?” he says. “That’s my immediate thought process when I see something.”

g the e asked Micallef d how the f car,’” e Micallef tree If it’s f a little ently, not g t ught himself “I go to and lemonade?” d he hen I see something.” e

One Word: Rubber Once out of high school, Micallef kept looking for ways to make money. When construction picked up in his neighborhood, he made deals with builders to lock up their houses at day's end and used that to start a heavy cleaning business.

l, Micallef kept look-on up in his lock up their houusses r ning business.

ck. “Not even t closese,” ch Managemennt h ity. His best frriieend’s t ne nd

Micallef tried college classes, but it didn’t stick. “Not even close,” he says, although he later attended TCU’s Ranch Management program and a mini-MBA at Harvard University. His best friend’s parents owned a company called Detroit Silicone Rubber Co. that was in trouble, Micallef says, and they recruited him at age 25. “I started running a department,” he says. “It didn’t take very long; I ended up taking the whole plant over.”

The “people side was easy,” he says. “The tendency was to treat workers like slaves. That’s not how I’d like to be treated.” With managers leaving, “my first duty was to walk around and ask everybody who was the smartest. Then I’d turn around and say to that person, ‘You’re the supervisor.’ I did that in every department.”

In 1971, three years later, K&M Plastics bought Detroit Silicone. The company was renamed Jamak, Inc., and the new owners promoted him to vice president and G.M. and offered 20 percent of the company for $5,000. “I can’t imagine I had it,” Micallef says. “But somehow, I got it.”

The partners set out to move the company from Michigan. Micallef focused on Texas. “When I was a little kid, I built a crystal set, and the only station I could get was Del Rio, Texas. I always thought I lived in Texas.”

A few years after its move to Weatherford, Jamak was ready to expand. But the city declined Jamak’s proposal, Al Micallef says. So to make a point, “the next payroll, I paid it in $2 bills. I covered the city in $2 bills. The next council meeting, they approved it.”

Micallef soon came to own 100 percent of the company, first buying one of three partners out. Two others died, but the partners had put in place buy-sell agreements that protected them from being in business with a partner’s heirs in event of a death. Micallef

A few w years after itts r mov o e to Wea e therford, Jam expand But the t city e declineed Jam a ak ’s proposal, A to o makke a point n , “thhe next pay a roll, I it d in t $2 b ciity y in $2 bilills s The h next e council meeting, l they ap Mi M c calleef soon f camme to own 100 percent of t the c e bu b y ying one g of e thr h ee e partners out. Two others died haad put in t place n buy u -sell e agreements l that protecte beinng in businnes e s with a partner’s heirs in event o t bought thoose s t stakes. e

Fixing Jam a ak had k $3 d million in n annual s l

“Professional managers in many cases cannot manage costs in a downturn. It’s not their money. It’s easier not to face the reality of what has to be done. When things are good, everybody’s a hero.”

Serendipity intervened. En route to Mineral Wells to look at a site, he stopped at the Dairy Queen in Weatherford and struck up a conversation with the man behind him, who turned out to be Weatherford’s city manager. “Weatherford built the plant for me,

Jamak had $3 million in annual sales when Micallef came to work for it, he recalls. Today, the company, which specializes in silicone rubber solutions with products like gaskets, seals, and tubing, does about $20 million in sales from continuing operations, down from a peak $30 million, Micallef said. Those figures don't count sales from one operation the company sold, Micallef said.

Micallef f came to work for k it, r he recalls. e the in silicone rubber e solutions r with produ h seals, and d does about $20 t million in n sales operations, down from n a m k callef said. f Those e don't t h l

Jamak has been buffeted by big changes in its industry and outside. “Margins shrank from pressure, dramatically, from suppliers,” one reason gross sales are off their peak, he says. And impact from Obamacare raised health premium.

Micallef had retired from day-to-day management before returning fulltime in 2012 after being away more than 10 years. He started to become more active in 2008 after recession hit.

“When I came back, I had excess inventory, too many managed disciplines that were unnecessary,” he says. “Professional managers in many cases cannot manage costs in a downturn. It’s not their money. It’s easier not to face the reality of what has to be done. When things are good, everybody’s a hero.”

– Al Micallef

Micallef pared personnel. Today, Jamak has 240-250 employees, down from 300. He also moved some production offshore, to places like China with a partner there. Jamak does about 70 percent of manufacturing in the United States today, compared to 100 percent when Obama took office, he says. “Obama forced me to automate,” Micallef says.

Micallef also decided to get rid of the $18 million in debt he

had accumulated from his enterprises, including expanding manufacturing, investing in ranches since the early-1990s, and “doing all the things” like playing polo and indulging other hobbies, Micallef says.

A big chunk of the debt came from a $6-$8 million haircut Jamak took in resolving claims that resulted from a faulty part provided by a supplier. The supplier was unable to participate in paying the claims, so Jamak shouldered them. “It would have been much easier for me to bankrupt the company than to pay off the obligations,” Micallef says. “We paid off the obligations.”

Micallef, who began buying ranchland in the mid-1990s and built to 156,000 acres, started selling in 2009 to cash in on high prices and eliminate the debt.

Today, Micallef has a remaining 20,000 acres, all around Alpine, and he estimates he had a $5 million basis in the $18 million worth of ranchland he sold. “I wrote a check, and I hunkered down and rode out the recession,” says Micallef, who today remains debt-free.

Where Rubber Meats the Rode If Micallef says he remained away from Jamak for too long, it was because he was making money at his other enterprises.

Micallef opened the Alpine Reata in 1995 in an old house. A year later, he was talked into opening a second Reata at the top of the Bank One Tower in downtown Fort Worth, after a bank executive visited Micallef at the ranch to talk him into it. “I said, ‘I’m not in the restaurant business; I just wanted a place to eat,’” Micallef says.

AL MICALLEF’S PORTFOLIO

1968

Al Micallef begins work as manufacturing manager at Detroit Silicone Rubber Co.

1971

K&M Plastics buys Detroit Silicone, and Jamak Fabrication is formed. Micallef becomes vice president and general manager and buys a 20 percent ownership stake.

1972

Micallef moves Jamak to Weatherford.

MID-1990S

Micallef buys CF Ranch in Alpine with an initial purchase of 10,000 acres, and eventually owns 156,000 acres of ranchland.

1995

Reata Restaurants: Micallef opens first Reata, in Alpine. Reata opens at the top of the Bank One Tower in Fort Worth but is forced out after a tornado. In March 2002, Reata

But he invited the executive, a friend, to stay at the ranch and eat at Reata for a week. The executive stayed; Micallef relented. “We got a really good deal,” Micallef says, declining to specify terms. The restaurant was almost immediately profitable.

Reata opened two restaurants in Southern California that didn’t survive. Its Fort Worth restaurant was destroyed when a tornado hit the building in 2000, but Reata reopened in 2002 in the former Caravan of Dreams downtown, launching a lucrative catering business in the interim, in part, to keep his people

reopens its downtown restaurant in the former Caravan of Dreams. Two other Reatas in Southern California open and later close.

ia open and er r

on. “He didn’t want to lay anybody off,” Amanda Micallef says. Al Micallef estimates the Reata Fort Worth operation does about $12 million in annual sales today, one quarter from catering. The restaurant is considering opening a second location in Fort Worth.

2009

009

llef starts f ranchland prices and $18 million 8 He pares e to 000 acres 0 he oday around y and is debtallef f 11,000 -acre a a ll cres sale r

Micallef starts selling ranchland to take advantage of high prices and pay off $18 million in debt. He pares to the 20,000 acres he owns today around Alpine and is debtfree. Micallef is dividing CF’s 11,000-acre Sierra La Rana ranch into small ranches of 10-150 acres for sale.

AL MICALLEF’S BUSINESSES – silicone rubber products, ranching, development, restaurants, and cigars – gross $50-$55 million in annual sales today and employ 800-1,000 depending on season, he estimates. g pg d Fort Worth. Micallef ’ s first major t foray r into y ranching occurred g when d he and partners d ranches t and 20,000 d head of d in Utah and Wyoming d morre g than 25 years ago. “We had genettics d in ouur boars r that would t throw d w every timme, ” y Micallef says. f The probllem: “A lot of t the we d noot d t d raiisse d three babies. The we had diis- d We sold off every th t i ingg.” f A short time t Miccalle l f threw in w this time buy ying 100,00 0 0 acrres s in a base thaat grrew to 156 5 ,000 00 accres The remaining g raanch properrt ty is branded CF d Rannchh. it’s runnniing g about 500 t head of d , off the h f 14,0000 15,000 peak from k 15 yeears r ago, beffoore Micallef downsizzed d f the e operation n duriinng a sustained d in prices Cattle priice c s are more than double what theey t weere 10 years ago. “We could be d extreeme m ly y proofittable if we f had as d many head y as we did d ” ,” he says.

ing occurred when he and partners bought ranches and 20,000 head of sheep in Utah and Wyoming more than 25 years ago. “We had genetics in our boars that would throw triplets every time,” Micallef says. The problem: “A lot of the breeds we had could not feed and raise three babies. The advantage we had disappeared. We sold off everything.” A short time later, Micallef threw in again, this time buying 10,000 acres in Alpine, a base that grew to 156,000 acres.

2012

012

ef returns f ve e le in e Jamak out a t

Micallef returns to active leadership role in Jamak after about a decade away.

branded CF Ranch. Today, it’s running about 500 head of cattle, off the 14,00015,000 peak from 15 years ago, before Micallef downsized the operation during a sustained drop in prices. Cattle prices are more than double what they were 10 years ago. “We could be extremely profitable if we had as many head as we did,” he says.

2016

016

ef ef goes f into ership with mez z to ket t igars.

Micallef Cigars. Micallef goes into partnership with the Gomez Sanchez family to produce and market premium cigars.

the potential revenue streams from the ranches. It’s dividing CF’s 11,000-acre Sierra La Rana ranch in Alpine into small ranches of 10-150 acres. Of the original 108 lots, 49 are left. “I paid $2 million for it,” Micallef says. “Over 30 years, it could be a $150 million asset for my family.”

Micallef has f worked to explo l it mosst t of the potenntial rev e ennue u l strreams m from the ranchees. It’t’s dividin i g CF’s 11,000-acre e Sierra La a Rana rannch in Alpinne inntto sma m ll ranches of 100-150 acrrees s Of the e orrigginnal 108 lots, 49 are left. t “I $2 millioon for r it,” Micallleef sayys. “Over 30 r yea e rs, it cou uld be a $150 mill lioon ass s et for o my r

underground aquifers, runs hunts and photo safaris, rents the property for film, TV, and print work, and special events like weddings, and raises and sells koi and desert plants. The property, which has populations of elk, mule deer, Barbary Sheep, antelope, javelina, feral pigs, and one reluctant buffalo that’s eluded hunters for years, has a modest amount of for-rent lodging. Micallef won't drill on the property, nestled among the Davis ranges. “I’m against exploration,” Micallef says. “There’s limestone and oil and gas for sure. But there’s this overburden of igneous rock that inhibits the 3D seismic. When you’re drilling, you’re purely wildcatting.”

CF Ranch h als l o sel e l ls water e frrom r its underground aquuiffers, , runns hunts and safariss, renntts the h proope p rty for film, r TV, and prinnt d work, k t and d spe p cial eventts l ddings, and raises d and sells d kooi and i desert d pla l nts. The ty, which has of elk, f mule deeerr, y e, feral pigs, l and one d relucta t nt buffalo l t th hat’s hunters for years, r has a modest amoount t of forr-rrent lodgingg. allef won't f drill t on l the property, nes e tled d among the h g Dav vis i “I’m against t Micallef says. f “TThere’ ’ s lim i ee nd oil d and l gas d for sure. r But there’s t this overbburdeen of ignne- f k that inhibits t the 3D seismic. When you ’ re drillling, g you ’ re wildcatting.”

If the family’s busithe youngest of the what’s connected the businesses and passions.

If I the h f business s por o tffolio seems s like a mish-mash, Mike e Micallef sayys the bus u ineesse s s bear similalari r ties s “If f youu’re maki k ng n a g par a t or a r recipe, it’s all the l samme thhing,” he says. “The brea eake k ven on cattle or a reccipe, it’s the same thhinngg. ” Sarah Micall lef, th t e youunggeest of the Micallef f chi h lddren at 38 and representaativve d of the f cigar bussin i esss r in Southwest Texass, t says “innovation o and new product” is part of t what’s connected the d businesses and passions. d

as a business to use the ranch more effectively. He bought and sold yearlings and raced horses, winning the industry’s NATC annual race considered the Kentucky Derby for two-year-olds. “I lost a substantial amount of money in that business,” Micallef says. “I left about $5 million in that area. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds.” Correcting himself, he adds, “well, that’s not true. That’s not true.”

If polo was a money-suck, Micallef says he covered that by going into farms at the same time. “We made a lot of money buying and selling farms,” he says. “I covered the costs of polo.”

Staying Young Micallef thinks his unexpected cigar business can surge. Micallef, who lives in Southwest Fort Worth with his wife, a few steps from their son's home, starts the day in Weatherford but is usually at Silver Leaf by midafternoon.

“I’m 74,” he says. “It’s not a smart thing to start a business of this magnitude at this point in your life. This is a 10-year project to do it right.”

“I with d school; he comes up with prob intuitively,” she says.

“I struggled with school; he comes up with problem-solving

An employee he recruited to help run the business is in Nicaragua, learning from the Gomez Sanchez operation. Micallef has two-thirds of the business. “Staying active mentally and physically creates longevity,” Micallef says. “I think this could be a $20 million cigar business in the next five to eight years.”

CF Ranch still bears the traces of some other Micallef hobbiesturned-businesses, like the barns he built for thoroughbreds, the polo fields, and shooting range. Micallef has converted a building into a museum for his artifacts, which show off his other pursuits, like auto racing, sailing, and flying. His love of flying – he’s still a licensed airplane and helicopter pilot, even though he’s sold off his planes – led to a side business called Flight Services.

Various businesses and hobbies sucked in the Micallef family at different times. “The whole family would get immersed, and suddenly we were off on this new adventure,” says Amanda Micallef, who played polo with her brother and dad.

l the traces some M r turned-businesses, like the barns he built for t thoro r fields, and d range. Micallef has f conve into a museum for his r artifacts, which show off his f like auto racing, sailing, and d His love of fly a licensed airplane d and helicopter d pilot, r even thoug his – led to d a side business called d Ser v t Various businesses and hobbies d sucked s in d the Mic e different times. t “The whole e would y get d immers t we y were off on f this n new s adventure,” w says Aman who with o her brother r and r dad d

Micallef has set the family business up for the future. The family’s holdings, upon their parents’ deaths, would go into a trust to be managed by Mike Micallef.

Al Micallef gets invitations occasionally to speak to students. Lessons he tells them he's learned: “I let enthusiasm and curiosity rule my decisions rather than good solid business practices. And a lesson I still haven’t really learned is how to say no.”

On this visit to Alpine, Micallef, at the Fort Davis Drug Store for a burger at lunch, runs into a former employee who helped introduce Micallef to an investment opportunity he’s been in for years: a group exploring in the Phillippines for a huge gold cache supposedly hidden by the Japanese during World War II.

Once, her dad r raced d a d Ford Bronco d from Cartagen m Aires, to y end o up d in p the n e five l e with s a s he got e from t popping m too g many o aspirin. Micallef got f t

Once, her dad raced a Ford Bronco from Cartagena to Buenos Aires, only to end up in the hospital five days with a stomach ulcer he got from popping too many aspirin. Micallef got into horses

Micallef admits to no regrets. “I was watching TV with a really attractive girl, and I fell asleep,” he'll joke if asked this question. “Honestly, I don’t have any regrets.”

Micallef (right), with the Bronco he raced between Cartagena and Buenos Aires

Micallef, (top) on his 20,000-acre CF Ranch in Texas' Davis Mountains and (below) in his office at the ranch

Out of Gas?

How fast will Fort Worth development adjust to energy disruption and a future of fewer cars on the road?

BY SCOTT NISHIMURA

It was a jarring statement, especially in Texas, whose denizens consider the ability to drive around one-perSuburban nearly a birthright.

“Any child born today will never drive, never, ever,” Tony Seba, the futurist who’s predicting the demise of fossilfuel-powered vehicles and parking, told the several hundred people who jammed the Omni Fort Worth Hotel for the annual dinner of the Near Southside, Inc. nonprofit in early March.

In Seba’s mind, spending a lot of money to own a car is already not

worth it, given the high costs of buying, maintaining, repairing, fueling, parking and insuring it, compared to the costs of getting around on public transit and services like Uber and Lyft. Autonomous self-driving cars, already being tested, will force the issue, dramatically lowering transportation costs, disrupting old-line industries like oil and gas, and rendering oceans of parking obsolete, he says. These changes will start in dense urban centers and move out from there.

“This disruption is not in the future,” Seba said, as the partygoers shifted in their chairs. “The only question is, What

are you going to do to prepare for it?”

Farfetched? Such ideas are getting a hearing in Texas. In Austin, a developer plans an apartment tower downtown with no new parking, relying on the city’s ample network of alternative transportation services ranging from ride-sharing to delivery and availability of goods and services in the central city. The concept is reaching Fort Worth, too. Fort Worth Housing Solutions, co-developer of the planned Vickery & Main transit-oriented development on a Near Southside public transit parking lot outside T&P Station, is looking

at paring parking to cut the projected project costs that are significantly over budget. The architect of the planned Magnolia Hotel on the Near Southside’s West Magnolia Avenue designed the garage space so it could be adapted later for some other use. And Near Southside, Inc., which has been leading the discussion in Fort Worth, has been looking for a small, planned multifamily development that might consider going with no parking or less than the standard ratio to cut construction costs.

The Near Southside might be the best place to try the idea in the city, given its large medical employment base, bus network, commuter rail, bikesharing, access to rideshare services, and walkability, says Mike Brennan, the Near Southside planning director. Near Southside, which highlighted the planned Austin project at its dinner, had earlier brought the developer Brad Nelsen along on a tour that included a conversation with the Housing Solu-

tions’ president, Naomi Byrne. Of the Austin alternative transportation package, “we have a less robust version of each of those elements,” Brennan says. “We have everything except car share.” Zipcar, a sharing service that lets users rent cars from on-street or parking lot locations using a mobile app, is slowly expanding in North Texas and has locations at TCU and the University of Texas at Arlington, but not elsewhere within Fort Worth or Arlington. Users rent cars via mobile app by the hour or day from those locations and must return them there.

deck. For tenants who have cars, Nelsen is arranging to lease a small number of spaces in a nearby garage.

Why it will work, Nelsen said: Downtown’s density, large numbers of bars and restaurants, entertainment options like movie theaters and live performances, 86,000 employees, and significant choices among alternative transportation and delivery providers.

Austin in the Lead. In the Austin development, which will be called The Avenue, the developer removed parking from the plan for its 30-story, 135-apartment tower at a $10 million construction savings, Nelsen said during a presentation at the Near Southside dinner. The carshare service Car2Go – a competitor to Zipcar - will post three cars on the street in dedicated spots in front of the building, Nelsen said, and Austin B-Cycle bikeshare will also have a station on the site. Nelsen is designing the first floor of the building with ample storage space, including refrigeration, to be able to accept deliveries of everything from food to household items. The building will also have a ground-floor restaurant, five floors of office space, a fitness center, community room and pool

The city of Austin set the stage in 2013 when it abolished minimum parking requirements in the central business district, allowing developers to determine how much parking to provide. His lenders also bought into the proposal, Nelsen said during the Near Southside dinner.

“It’s huge,” Nelsen said. “The lending community will always be the last to come around.”

Better Parking Plan for Vickery & Main? Fort

Worth’s Vickery & Main plan for the transit-oriented development includes 250 apartments, parking and other mixed uses. The plan calls for 300 parking spaces for the apartment tenants – slightly more than the standard one-to-one ratio in multifamily developments under construction in Fort Worth today – and 300 for transit. T&P is home to the west terminus of Trinity Railway Express trains to downtown Dallas, and in 2018, TEX Rail will begin running between T&P and DFW Airport. The T lot also has bus service and a Fort Worth Bike Sharing station.

Fort Worth Housing Solutions’ piece is estimated to cost $190 per square foot or a total $60-$70 million, including the 300 parking spaces for tenants. That’s over the typical budget of $130-$150 per square foot, Byrne said in an interview.

The most logical spot to look for savings is by cutting parking, which will cost an estimated $15,000 per space to build, Byrne said. Fifty-one percent of the building’s apartments will be set aside as affordable housing units – ones for tenants making 80 percent of area median income or less. Given that the

VICKERY & MAIN DEVELOPMENT

MAGNOLIA HOTEL

Renderings by Bennett Benner Partners

building will be adjacent to robust public transit options, it stands to reason the development could attract some tenants who don’t have cars, Byrne said.

Still, the parking strategy would sit on another pillar, giving parking passes to tenants, and assuming many of them will drive to work during the day. “That opens the spaces up for daytime commuter use,” Byrne said. Transit users, who currently park for free in the T lot, would pay to park in the garage. “You would have more continued use of the parking spaces.”

Customers of the retailers in the building would be encouraged to park on Vickery Boulevard, Byrne said.

“I think everyone’s open to discussing it as long as today’s needs are met and there’s some adaptability going into the future,” she said. On how financing partners might respond to the paring of parking, Byrne said, “I can’t imagine the lender not supporting that, because it could be a revenue generator.”

Byrne stressed Vickery & Main is not on the front-burner for Housing Solutions, whose current focus is on developments with federal “rental assistance demonstration” units – Section 8 public housing. Housing Solutions is trying to move redevelopments of the Cavile Place housing project in Southeast Fort Worth and Butler Place east of downtown, both Section 8 developments, forward. “That’s our focus for the next few years,” she said.

Re-Designing the Garage.

If car-light, or no-car developments are some time off for Fort Worth, the design of adaptable garages is moving

to the front of conversations. “We’re starting to think about how to design a garage so some or all of it can be converted to some other type of use at some point,” says Michael Bennett of Bennett Benner Partners, the architect who designed Vickery & Main and the planned Magnolia Hotel.

Bennett designed the Magnolia garage – it has one floor underground and four above, and a total 470 spaces to serve the hotel and surrounding businesses – with flat floors, appropriate floor heights, and ramps on end so the space can be adapted later for some other use. “It all happens at one end of the garage; the rest of the garage is flat,” Bennett says.

Vickery & Main has conventional ramp design. “We will look at that and see if we can make it work,” Bennett says. “Any garage we do from here on, we do from the point of, we can make this garage convertible.”

Pulling the Trigger - Almost.

At least one Fort Worth developer considered the idea of a multifamily development with no parking. Last year, Joe Frank built two townhomes on College Avenue on the Near Southside with traditional parking, at a total $460,000 investment.

His original idea for the site: five apartments on the small 50-by-100 lot with no parking. “To have parking, you’d have had to have another lot,” he said. Frank noodled on the idea with Near Southside. “We were egging him on,” says Brennan, who told Frank he thought the on-street parking and Near Southside’s transit network would serve

the development.

“There was plenty of parking onstreet to park cars, but I was extremely apprehensive about what the market was going to do,” Frank said.

Frank says he had multiple other conversations with brokers and tenants at a nearby 14-apartment property he owns. “The brokers were excited about another concept for the district,” Frank says. “My tenants were lukewarm.”

Frank also had an early conversation with his bankers, Don Waters and Donna Moon of Liberty Bank, who’ve backed 40 deals for him since 2006.

“Moon said, if you think it would work,’” Frank says. “I think they would have done it. But I wasn’t willing to put my reputation and money on the line.”

Skeptics of parking-light or parkingfree developments in Fort Worth point to big gaps in the public transit system.

“I suspect we will see them; I say we’re years away,” Lori Baldock, banking center president of Southwest Bank’s Midtown branch and a Near Southside board member, said in an interview. “The mass transit system doesn’t exist for that.”

Baldock has a litany of questions.

“What are the alternatives to privately owned vehicles? Does mass transit exist? And then, how do you address peak demand? It requires a dense urban environment. Can anybody afford to live in that urban environment? Affordable housing is a huge factor. If this project starts to struggle, how do you retrofit for parking if you miss the mark?”

Southwest Bank, known for its eagerness to finance local development, isn’t ea-

MICHAEL BENNETT, BENNETT BENNER PARTNERSTOWNHOMES ON COLLEGE AVE.

Photo by Kevin Brown

Photo by Joe Frank

ger to look at parking-light deals, Baldock says. “Parking is a No. 1 concern for us in a development,” she says. “Things would have to evolve pretty significantly for us today in this market.”

But Seba, the planner, says change is coming faster than most people might recognize and is being driven by simple economics. It costs 70 cents per mile today to own a car, he estimates. The combination of car sharing, self-driving, and electric cars will drive that to 3-5 cents per mile for transportation as a service, effectively making vehicles that operate on fossil fuels obsolete, he says.

“This is just about economics,” says Seba, who lives in San Francisco and is a lecturer on entrepreneurship, disruption, and clean energy at Stanford University. Electric car technology is dropping in price with battery innovation, and “electric cars can last maybe a million miles. Today, when we own cars, we don’t think about cents per mile. The metric is going to change. People are going to be thinking about it differently.”

Seba estimates these trends will eventually open up 446 acres of parking on the Near Southside for some other use, or 32 percent of the footprint. “Parking is going to be obsolete,” he says.

Ann Zadeh, the Fort Worth City Council member whose district includes the Southside, downtown, Oakhurst, and West Seventh, is on board with the idea that there will be less of a need for parking in the future in the central city. How fast it will occur is another question.

“People can agree that we’re moving in that direction,” she says. Zadeh has asked the city staff to analyze parking and needs across the city. “We’re constantly trying to fix things instead of looking at them in a comprehensive way.”

Bennett thinks the diminution of parking will happen. But in Fort Worth, “I think it’s going to take some time. It goes back to the idea that I don’t know if our network is complete enough.”

Under the Bus: the T. Fort

Worth certainly is in catch-up mode with its transit network. The Fort Worth T, in rolling out its new master plan last year, identified the size of the system, infrequent service, inadequate service to areas with high demand, and lack of funding as four key issues the T faces. Twenty-five percent of the T’s revenue comes from bus fares and a half-cent sales tax; the T will need partnerships and other funding to tackle what’s in its master plan.

The T has limited service outside Loop 820. Numerous areas have high demand but are underserved, including Arlington, Grapevine, and Johnson County. The T estimates it provides service within a quarter-mile of only 29 percent of Tarrant County’s population. Acting on the master plan recommendations, in 2016, the T implemented Route 64, the North Texas Xpress, serv-

“This disruption is not in the future. The only question is, ‘What are you going to do to prepare for it?”

– Tony Seba, energy disrupter

ing Alliance and Denton from downtown. In April, the T rolled out a new set of routes that augmented service north of Loop 820 and added a crosstown route – meaning it doesn’t go through downtown – between the Stockyards and Ridgmar Mall, stopping at the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base and River Oaks, a new partner.

The master plan lays out a long list of recommendations the T wants to address in the next five years: improving existing service; expanding to new areas; increasing frequency; improving connections; developing outlying hubs so all buses don’t have to connect through downtown; developing premium services like more commuter rail, bus rapid transit (light rail-like service with buses), rapid buses (middle ground between light rail and buses), street cars, and regional service; improving and expanding express service; improving facilities; and boosting transit access through better first and last-mile options, conditions around bus stops and park and rides.

The T has been going quadrant by quadrant in examining its service. “When we looked at all of our service areas, we found the North quadrant was the most confusing,” says Paul Ballard, who took over as the T’s CEO in 2014. The T has worked to simplify confusing routes, increase fre-

PAUL BALLARD, CEO OF THE T

Photo by Erik Clapp

quency, and strategically add service.

The East quadrant is the city’s best served, Ballard says. On the South Side, Hemphill Street is well-served, but the bus service is otherwise “hit or miss,” he says. The T is looking at starting a circulator around the Near Southside to support the bus routes, Ballard said.

In the West quadrant, the T wants to focus on express service from parkand-ride lots – “one of the things we’re finding is that not everybody wants to come downtown,” Ballard says – but it’ll need funding and partners like the agreement it struck with River Oaks to stop twice on River Oaks Boulevard.

The T is also in talks with Cultural District stakeholders on a potential circulator that would stretch from the Trinity River to the museums. The T is going out to requests for proposals on electric buses. “They want cool and sleek, and we’re going out [to RFP] and saying, what have you got?” Ballard says. Businesses have been offering support, but “the tough part is to obtain ongoing operating support.”

Some underserved areas in Northeast Tarrant County will see their service dramatically increase when TEX Rail goes into DFW Airport, and the T will redirect much of its bus service in the quadrant to the station, giving more incentive to suburban cities to come on as partners, Ballard says. “We build a tree trunk; you have to agree to fill out the limbs.”

Zipcar Growing in North Texas.

Another of North Texas’ transportation assets, the car-sharing service Zipcar, has been growing since it put in cars at the University of Texas at Dallas in 2012. Zipcar did an official Dallas launch in September 2014. It now has more than 60 cars in North Texas, spokeswoman Katelyn Chesley said. Most of the cars are in Dallas. Zipcar’s neighborhood sites in Dallas include Uptown, downtown, and Mockingbird Station. It’s also at Southern Methodist University.

In Tarrant County, it’s put in cars

at TCU and the University of Texas at Arlington. At TCU, Zipcar has four vehicles and two locations. And at UTA, Zipcar has six vehicles and three locations. In North Texas, all Zipcars are “round-trip,” meaning they must be returned where they were checked out.

Zipcar rates start at $7.50 an hour and $69 per day and include gasoline and 180 miles of driving, allowing users to run errands or go out on day trips. Most of Zipcar’s Texas members own a personal vehicle and use Zipcar as a second, Chesley said.

Zipcar, which has one million members worldwide, doesn’t disclose local membership or usage numbers, Chesley said. In response to an emailed question about its expansion plans in North Texas, Chesley said, “We don’t have any specific expansion plans to announce at this time, but we’re always looking to provide more cars to more people in more places across Texas. We typically launch in cities and at universities that are dense, highly walkable and in need of innovative transportation that increases mobility while also making better use of roadways.”

Fort Worth BCycle Expands. Fort Worth BCycle, the Fort Worth unit of the U.S. bike-sharing network, launched in 2013, has 45 stations today and is adding one later this spring outside the Ella Mae Shamblee Library in the Evans-Rosedale district. Twenty-five

percent of traffic is from commuting, says Kristen Camareno, the executive director. BCycle is rolling out a couple of new advanced bikes that will could make their way to Fort Worth and allow Fort Worth BCycle to extend its reach, Camareno says. One is the Smart Bike. “Right now, the brains are in the (BCycle docking) stations. With Smart Bike, they’re in the bikes. They have turnby-turn navigation. It allows us to start looking at neighborhood stations” with fewer bikes than at a traditional station, which will augment the network’s first and last-mile links.

“The cost of 10 Smart Bikes is less than the cost of a traditional station and 10 regular bikes,” Camareno says. “It’s something we’re just beginning to think about as a board. We’ll need the funding to do it.”

The second new bike is the E Bike, which will be available in 2018. It has pedal assist. “This is the way to get to the office in summer without sweating,” Camareno says.

KRISTEN CAMARENO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AT BCYCLE

Kendall Records, Mathew Debilio, and Christine Clutterbuck of Relievr.

Ventures With Values

One TCU student's memories of chronic illness and hospital stays leads to a startup that wants to bring virtual reality programming into children's hospitals, helping patients cope with pain, anxiety and depression.

BY SCOTT NISHIMURA / PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALEX LEPE

As an elementary school student, Christine Clutterbuck was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease, a painful, chronic inflammatory bowel disease. In and out of the hospital for two years, during which she underwent several surgeries, Clutterbuck, now a TCU senior, has been symptom-free since she was 12.

“It just kind of stuck with me,” Clutterbuck, who graduated from Grapevine High School and is due to graduate in December from TCU’s Neeley School of Business, says. “I couldn’t stay in school longer than two weeks. I had allergies to foods. I would get extremely sick for no reason.” Of the hospital stays, and the isolation of the experience, she says, “It’s such a depressing environment. My family couldn’t be there all the time because of work. It makes it very difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

No wonder then that the experience served as fodder for Clutterbuck, who registered last fall for a class on starting a business. Taking advantage of opportunities created by burgeoning virtual reality, Clutterbuck wanted to create content that would ease pain, anxiety and depression among for patients in children’s hospitals.

“The original idea was storytelling, possibly animated,” says Mathew Debilio, a Neeley senior who grew up in an entrepreneurial family in Southern California and is one of two partners who came on board with Clutterbuck. “You’d be sitting in a forest, and the story would be going on around you.”

To develop video, “we envisioned partnering with a developer,” says Kendall Records, a Neeley senior from Sugarland and the third partner in the venture, called Relievr. But that route would have been too expensive. “We had no way to pay for it, to bootstrap it,” Records says. “It was out of our price range.”

So the idea evolved into an open source platform, with existing content provided by third parties that would be paid per view.

“That opens it up,” Debilio says.

Clutterbuck, Debilio and Records obtained a camera from TCU and spent three months shooting and producing mock video. They spent one Saturday in January shooting video of two people dressed as princesses. They shot another video of singing and storytelling. They taped pictures of basketballs on seats at TCU’s Ed and Rae Schollmaier Arena and produced a 360-view “I Spy” piece. “There’s a deeper level of distraction” with 3D, Debilio says. The three shot TCU’s annual Christmas tree lighting. Debilio shot pictures during a winter road trip

from Southern California to Portland. Clutterbuck also shot pictures and video during a trip to Peru.

The idea: to give children an escape from the hospital.

The three contacted Cook Children’s Medical Center, where Clutterbuck had been treated as a child and where she hadn’t returned for a visit in 10 years, and have been working with the Fort Worth hospital’s child life specialists since the fall.

They’ve been running focus groups with the Cook Children’s Youth Advisory Council, also known as the YAC-PAC, a group of 20 current and former patients as old as 18. “They are there to be the voice of patients,” Clutterbuck says.

With the “I Spy” content, “they immediately caught the destination piece of it,” Clutterbuck says. One 9-year-old patient confided, “When she feels anxious, she goes to Google Maps so she can feel like she’s outside the hospital,” Debilio says. Clutterbuck: “We’ve been trying to get to that age again,” to better understand patients.

Patients told Clutterbuck, Debilio and Records, “‘I want to go see my friends’ birthday parties,’” Clutterbuck says. “‘I want to see my home.’ The kids would love to see the education piece, what this disease is doing to their body. It’s an extremely powerful technology that has so much therapeutic value behind it.”

The feedback on experiences outside the hospital that the children miss during their stays gave Clutterbuck, Debilio and Records an idea for another revenue stream: content customized for specific patients. “We’re not capable of doing that ourselves,” Clutterbuck says. “But what if we were able to partner” with a vendor?

Content would be streamed through a mobile app that Clutterbuck, Debilio and Records plan to develop. Smartphones with the app would slip into virtual reality headsets. The team is using Google Cardboard headsets, which cost $15 apiece, or two for $25. “We’re going to try to work with Google,” Records says.

As for outside content, the trio pitched the idea to the Dallas Cowboys and Dallas Mavericks and drew interest, they said. An idea for customized content: drop a camera into the Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium during a game, ask game-goers to cheer for a patient in the hospital, and “maybe [the patient] gets to see the game,” Debilio says. Among other potential content partners: Disneyland, Debilio says.

Michael Sherrod, a serial entrepreneur and the William M. Dickey Entrepreneur in Residence at the

Merge VR's virtual reality headset, one of two Relievr is looking at, sells for $59.99.

Neeley Entrepreneurship Center, is high on the potential being created by advances in virtual and augmented reality.

He believes the potential for partnerships with content providers like the Walt Disney Co. and Marvel. He also believes Relievr can expand into other markets besides children’s hospitals. “It’s a wonderful business; there are other markets,” he says.

Relievr’s potential revenue streams, as they’ve evolved, include selling branding on the headsets, charging a price per view that hospitals would pay, and charging fees to collaborate on customized content.

The Relievr team briefly considered putting its content on YouTube, which pays 7 to 8 cents per thousand views. “But there’s no way to censor those ads,” Records says. “We’ve kind of moved away from that.”

The trio’s work so far has won them TCU’s spot in TCU’s annual international Richards Barrentine Values and Ventures® Business Plan Competition, held in late April in Fort Worth. (Relievr was not one of the nine teams among the 51 entries that advanced to the finals.) Relievr earlier received a $1,500 grant for research from the Shadduck Venture Capital Fund that benefits TCU students.

IBM has expressed interest in becoming a partner, the team says. And just before Values and Ventures, the team received what it’s calling “an early verbal commitment” from Sony as a potential partner, announcing that development during its Values and Ventures presentation.

Sony, among other things, makes smartphones and PlayStation game consoles and has a virtual reality gaming system for PlayStation. The company’s library includes content for PlayStation and Columbia Pictures, owned by Sony. Sony has been aggressively developing its virtual reality portfolio. Another big potential value-add that a Sony partnership could provide, Clutterbuck says: Smartphones.

A partnership with Sony “would just put us in a very unique position,” Clutterbuck said after Relievr’s Values and Ventures presentation.

The team is seeking $125,000 in first-stage funding to build its app, put it into work in Cook Children’s for pilot research and prove the concept. “It’s down to find the right partner,” Records says.

Production of VR content today is hindered by “temperamental” camera technology, with problems in the 360 view and

lighting, Debilio says. “We’re almost waiting on the technology to catch up,” he says.

How does the company evolve after the three students graduate from TCU? Debilio and Records, both 22, are graduating in May, and Debilio has a job in sales for IBM that starts in August, giving them the summer to ramp the company up, Debilio says. But even after that, “we’re all planning on staying in the area,” Records says.

Social entrepreneurship appeals. “I really want to make the world a better place,” she says. Debilio, whose grandfather founded a food distributorship and father eventually took the company over, says, “I was always looking for some way to have an impact,” and Relievr “clicked with me.”

How Texas Teams Fared How about a new greenhouse technology that promises to dramatically increase crop yields? Or

Debilio, Records and Clutterbuck present at the annual international Values and Ventures competition in April at TCU. Photo by B.J. Lacasse

Relievr's founders and the Google Cardboard and Merge VR headsets they're using.

a Dallas poke bar that helps move teens from foster care into adulthood and made $1.2 million in sales its first four months? Or a tree wrap that slashes water use? These were three of the entries from Texas schools that were among the total 51 entries in TCU’s annual international collegiate Richards Barrentine Values and Ventures Competition.

University of Texas at Arlington: Its SolGr team was one of the contest’s nine finalists, winning honorable mention and a $2,500 prize. SolGr provides an embedded plastic that replaces greenhouse canopies with technology that amplifies the sun’s UV light by converting the color spectrum unused by plants into wavelengths needed for photosynthesis. The technology can help boost crop yields to address world hunger.

“More food, faster,” one its founders said in presenting the plan to the Values and Ventures judges.

SMU: Its team’s Pol the Raw Bar on McKinney Avenue in Dallas serves poke raw fish bowls from Hawaii. Through its Imagine X Inspire program, Pok the Raw teams with CASA Youth Shelter to help move teens from foster care into adulthood. In its first four months in business, Pok the Raw reported it made $1.2 million in revenue. It’s projecting $3.6 million in first-year revenue. The Values and Ventures judges awarded it the contest’s annual Ripple Effect award, with a $5,000 prize.

Tarleton State University: Its TreeMendous Tree-Ps wrap around trees for easy-to-use microecosystems that reduce water, energy and herbicide use by 75-90 percent. TreeMendous donates Tree-Ps to school and community gardens. TreeMendous won the Marjorie and James Sly Award for Entrepreneurial Innovation and a $2,500 prize.

University of Texas at Austin: Anish Aggarwal launched Top Tier Learning – a peer-to-peer tutor service offering top-performing high school students up as tutors to high school peers who

“The kids would love to see the education piece, what this disease is doing to their body. It’s an extremely powerful technology that has so much therapeutic value behind it.”

– Christine Clutterbuck

need the service - while he was a senior in high school in Chicago. In the two years since, Aggarwal, now a UT student, and partners have built the company to 16 branches and 170 tutors, serving a total 200 clients and generating $100,000 in revenue. One of the branches is in Mansfield, managed by a high school senior Aggarwal recruited through a friend. “When I was 17, it was hard to establish credibility,” Aggarwal says. Then he teamed up with a YMCA. “Suddenly, I had credibility. When I started this, I didn’t think it would last a month. Then I didn’t think it would last a year. Then I didn’t think it would last two years.”

University of Texas at Dallas: Easily one of the teams catching a lot of buzz during the content, UTD’s PropelEye team is developing technology that it says law enforcement will be able to use to “recognize weapons and open hands.” PropelEye’s pitch: “When PropelEye discerns that both hands are open, the civilian is considered not a threat, so the system locks the (police officer’s) gun’s trigger.”

Prairie View A&M University: Triple Time Energy is a conservation system and app and monitors a household’s water, electricity and gas consumption in real time, supplemented by graphs and information to help reduce usage.

St. Mary’s University: Its Purpose Portraits team donates 5 percent of profits from every paid portrait session to the Military Warriors Foundation and provides a free photography session to a military family.

TCU: Its Relievr team improves child care through virtual reality, using a community-based platform that delivers engaging and therapeutic experiences designed for children in hospitals.

University of Houston: SynTire’s process produces an additive that makes tires tougher and more durable, augmenting performance and lifespan and reduced tire-related accidents and disposal.

(Top to bottom) The SMU, Tarleton State and University of Texas at Arlington entries in the Values and Ventures competition. Photos by B.J. Lacasse

AND THE WINNERS ARE…

Biotech, sustainability, and businesses that benefit vulnerable populations take center stage among the winners in TCU’s annual Richards Barrentine Values and Ventures Competition.

BY SCOTT NISHIMURA

Here are the winners in TCU’s annual international Richards Barrentine Values and Ventures Competition, which invites undergraduate college students around the world to pitch business plans that make a profit while also benefitting the environment, community, or a specific population.

Grand Prize: University of Iowa. Organizer, Inc. modernizes communication in organ transplant, using a real-time mobile software app that’s privacy-compliant and facilitates instantaneous communication and information flow. The system is designed to pare waste of organs that could have been harvested and transplanted. During a three-month beta test with hospitals, organ offers rose 5 percent, Dalton Shaull, a former Iowa football player, nerve transplant recipient, and CEO of Organizer, said during his Values and Ventures finals presentation.

$25,000 cash prize, $100,000 package of in-kind services

Second Place: Johns Hopkins University. Its Treyetech team developed a device for corneal surgery that eliminates difficult aspects of the procedure for surgeons by modifying the surgical workflow and reallocating steps to skilled eye bank technicians. $15,000 cash prize.

Third Place: Grand Valley State University. Stir It Up Bakery provides meaningful employment to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. $10,000 cash prize.

Honorable Mention, Founders Award, Warren Douglas Innovation Award: University of Chicago. Averia Health Solutions provides low-cost concussion sideline screening to young athletes using a device that leverages a smartphone camera and computational capabilities to make accurate eye tracking accessible. Total cash prize: $10,000.

Honorable Mention: University of CaliforniaIrvine. Closed Loop Plastics transforms plastic waste into usable filament for other uses, using only renewable energy. $2,500 cash prize.

Honorable Mention: University of Michigan. Kulisha offers a wastewater treatment solution for food and beverage processing plants that converts organic biosolid waste products into a protein for use in animal feeds. $2,500 cash prize.

Honorable Mention: University of Texas at Arlington. (See Texas Teams). $2,500 cash prize.

Honorable Mention: University of Pikeville. CitrOHa has created an allnatural dog food additive

with an antioxidant and nutritional blend derived from the seeds and peel of lemon byproducts from citrus juice manufacturing.

$2,500 cash prize.

Honorable Mention: University of Virginia. PAKA is an alpaca wool apparel company that gives Peruvian women weavers the resources to financially empower themselves. $2,500 cash prize.

Ripple Effect: SMU. (See Texas Teams). $5,000 cash prize.

Marjorie and James Sly Award for Entrepreneurial Innovation: Tarleton State (See Texas Teams). $2,500 cash prize.

Elevator Pitch, First: University of Florida. Sci Chic provides 3D-printed plastic and metal fashion jewelry to encourage young women to pursue STEM careers. $1,000 cash prize.

Elevator Pitch, Second: University of Western Ontario. TimeFund lets refugees in displaced communities share skills using time as currency. $500 cash prize.

Elevator Pitch, Third (tie): University of Alabama.

BioGram LLC has adapted the panoramic lens used for rocket engine analysis to be part of a new device used to perform minimally invasive heart surgery and endoscopic cancer diagnosis procedures. $250 cash prize.

Elevator Pitch, Third (tie) Washington University. GiftAMeal is socially conscious marketing platform for restaurants, giving a meal to someone in needs each time a user takes a photo at a participating restaurant. $250 cash prize.

Elevator Pitch, Honorable Mention: Kennesaw State. Art’NspirED LLC provides handmade products from World Trade Fair craftsmen across the globe, partnering with local schools to advertise while educating students about nations where the products are created. $100 cash prize.

Elevator Pitch, Honorable Mention. University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. RydePass reduces ride-share risk through a mobile platform that serves populations that are vulnerable due to lack of on-hand cash or credit, diminished capacity, or located in high-risk areas. $100 cash prize.

photos by B.J. Lacasse

BACK IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT

Jorge Varela, with 14 startups in his back pocket, left that world years ago to raise his four children. With the youngest in college, they’ve given him the green light to return to the starting line.

BY SCOTT NISHIMURA / PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALEX LEPE

It’s the one business Jorge Varela, a gearhead, dreamed of: starting an automobile design house. But with no idea how that one could happen, Varela’s leaving that one aside for now. “I wanted to do it big time, take it public,” says Varela, an apparent gearhead who says his first car was a “humongous boat” and his second, a Ford Pinto. You remember Pinto, the compact with the easily punctured fuel tanks that were susceptible to catching fire? “You take Cobra parts and a Cobra engine in a small light frame…” Varela says of his dream custom Pinto.

Varela, who these days motors around in a couple of BMWs, has been ruminating on several potential projects since he stepped down in March as director of the TECH Fort Worth incubator. He moved through a series of startups as a founder or willing participant early in his career, estimating he fulfilled one life’s goal of becoming a millionaire by age 30 when he and a partner sold a voice mail company.

His startups ran the gamut, including several in his native Belize, like a coffee shop he opened outside a small airport that ended up serving as the airport’s de facto passenger waiting lounge; golf cart rentals; real estate; a soccer team; an internet service provider; construction materials; road construction; and shipping.

Fourteen years ago, “my oldest daughter sat me down and said I was the worst dad ever” for never being around, he says.

“I made a promise I wouldn’t do another startup. I wanted to be there for them. When I get involved in a startup, I tend to be a little obsessive.”

Varela exited his last company about the same time and semi-retired. He moved to North Texas 10 years ago as a favor to friend who asked him to “keep an eye” on a company he owned in the area. Doing consulting work, he was recruited to TECH Fort Worth four years ago by Darlene Boudreaux, the incubator’s executive director.

“I said I don’t know anything about nonprofits and incubators,” Varela says. “But I could play with startups and not have a startup, and I wasn’t lying to my kids. They hired me for less than I was making as a consultant.”

Varela says he soon got restless. His children – the youngest is studying at Tarrant County College, and oldest is 27 – released

him earlier this year from his promise to not dive into another startup.

“Two days later, I said, ‘I quit,’” Varela says. “I launch and grow companies and sell them. And I try to do it in two to three years. It’s not that I like to sell things. I like to grow things.”

So what’s next?

“For sure, I’m starting up a consulting business to help economic development units, cities, develop innovation centers like TECH Fort Worth,” Varela says. “I’m also in talks with a venture capital fund that’s not Texas-based that is looking to expand into Texas. It’d be a Series A fund that exploits the gap between angel investors and VC.”

Finally, he says, he’s in the middle of discussions with a group that is planning an innovative interior-city redevelopment in the United States. He’s not naming the city.

“There is a foundation that is developing an innovation district in the downtown of a major U.S. city,” he says. “They’re going to plan the entire thing. It’s live-work-play where the focus is innovation. You take the concept of innovation, the incubators, the accelerators, the VC, the angels, within a livable, walkable area. If we pull it off, it’d be a masterpiece.” If that deal happens, he’d have to move. With the other two, he’d stay in Fort Worth, Varela says.

Varela doesn’t claim to be a startup savant. He founded 10 companies and entered four other startups early stage.

“My 14 startups, there was nothing unique about them. There was a small competitive advantage,” he says.

His restaurant at the airport in Belize was one example. When he installed a communications link between the airport and his restaurant, the airport used it to let waiting passengers know their flights were preparing to depart. Passengers began to hang out at the restaurant. “I helped the airline, and I drew people to my place,” Varela says. “I didn’t open a restaurant; I opened an outlet for the airlines.”

Varela grew up in a fishing village. His father was in the coconut business first,

Varela, with a friend's Shelby Cobra

then moved into seafood exports. Varela’s dad sent him to New Orleans to live with family when he was 15.

“I started learning about business and the stock market in the U.S.,” Varela says. “I set a goal to be worth $1 million by [age] 30, take an automotive design house public. Stupid.”

Varela found his route to $1 million net worth by 30, but he took a different route. He started college in New Orleans and found he didn’t like college so, in 1981, Varela joined the Air Force. “They did an aptitude test for me,” he says. His father was an electrical engineer who managed refrigeration for seafood. “I worked with him and learned mechanics and electrical,” Varela says. “I had an aptitude for electronics.”

Varela soon put that to use after moving to Florida. At 21, a mutual friend introduced him to an entrepreneur who wanted to start a company selling telephone systems and data wiring. The two started their company in Tampa.

“He advised me to have a lifestyle company,” Varela says. What’s a lifestyle company?

“It’s a company that makes enough to support your lifestyle.”

Every day, the two would meet near Varela’s house, then head out for the day. “Then we would get back together every day at the Hooter’s at 12:30 in Clearwater. Then he’d go fishing. He had his lifestyle company. He let me do whatever I wanted, and we started skyrocketing. I worked my butt off.” Varela had been attending college on the side, but he dropped out. “The work was too much.”

Varela next moved to California, where he was introduced to a group that was starting a company selling voice mail systems. Varela decided to join them. When the group exited a few years later, Varela says he achieved his big bucket list dream. “I wanted to be a millionaire by 30, and I was able to do that by exiting.”

“I launch and grow companies and sell them. And I try to do it in two to three years. It’s not that I like to sell things. I like to grow things.”

– Jorge Varela

Varela owned 10 percent of the company, which paid off when his partner decided to sell two years after they started the company. “I got a big chunk of change. That was good enough for me as a kid,” Varela says.

Varela “retired” to Belize in the late 1990s, where he soon got caught up in a number of startups and became an angel investor. Ten years later, he took his break to raise his children.

After moving with his children back to North Texas to look after his friend’s company, Varela decided to try to finish his college degree. “I wanted to get a degree before my daughter beat my ass to it,” he says. He decided on the University of Texas at Arlington.

UT Arlington at the same time was working on a sustainability initiative and reached out to Varela to help work on it as a paid consultant. “Somebody at the university figured out I had a communications and tech background, and they wanted to

know if I could do it,” Varela says.

That’s when he connected with Tech Fort Worth. “It was only logical we go after the incubators tied with universities,” he says. That partnership didn’t come off, but the introduction to TECH Fort Worth led to Varela’s move to the incubator in 2012. The incubator, under Boudreaux, has built a number of programs to foster entrepreneurial enterprises and launched the Cowtown Angels angel investor group. Most recently, it celebrated the sale of one of the businesses it fostered, an eye care company called Encore Vision, to Novartis for as much as $465 million.

Varela says the Fort Worth entrepreneurial ecosystem is strong. “You have everything here from zero to angels,” he says. “Where the need lies is in the VC realm. The one thing we need more than anything else is a champion to market our ecosystem to the world.”

These days, when he’s not thinking of his next startup, Varela can be found at Bass Hall or other theaters, taking in a show with his youngest daughter, Anna; mountain-biking on the river trails; or hanging out with other entrepreneurs at The Proper Bar on West Magnolia Avenue on Fort Worth’s Near Southside.

“I’m retired, but I’m not retired,” Varela says. “If somebody wants to talk to me, I’m here.”

Varela, at one of his hangouts The Proper Bar on Fort Worth's Near Southside

From Dirt Roads & Diesel Trucks to an Event Production Empire: Danny Miller of Eagle AVL

What do farm machines have in common with music concerts? More than you might think.

Danny Miller says a childhood filled with farm tools and a father’s lessons inspires the continuing success of his Fort Worth-based event production company, Eagle AVL.

“I grew up on a dirt road in Oklahoma, in an environment that was the complete opposite of the music industry. Being raised on a farm, I was around heavy machinery, working and driving tractors from a very young age. My two brothers and I were doing things that most people wouldn’t do until they were 20 years old.

“My dad always provided us the tools we needed to make things and build. Anytime we wanted to try something new, we had the tools to do it. I learned how to fix anything. As a kid, I always thought that my family was well-to-do;

not because we were – but because we had tools.

“Then we lost everything. We had to move out of our family home and into a trailer. Back in the 80s, a lot of people went through a very, very hard time. Banks were taking everything over. But my dad didn’t file for bankruptcy like everybody else did. Instead, he chose to sell everything he had left, including our house. We started over.

“Later on, Dad was able to strike a deal with the bank to buy and develop some property. Little by little, he paid back every penny that he owed. It took a very long time, but he made good on every debt he had.”

large reason why Eagle AVL became a success. Miller wakes up at 4 a.m. to start work every day – but it hasn’t been that long since he was staying up until 4 a.m. at night.

This integrity of character and work ethic was passed down from father to son and is a

“I have always been interested in music and learned to play the drums when I was young. As a teenager, I’d work at my family’s diesel shop in town all day long. But as soon as it was five o’clock, my friends would come over and we had band practice. We’d roll the trucks out of the shop, set everything up, and play all night long.

“In college, I became interested in audio and lighting. I discovered that it could be just as addictive as playing an instrument, and just as challenging to master. I started

building sound systems and putting things together – and they worked really well.”

Miller’s hands-on experience with machinery at a young age gave him an edge in the audiovisual industry, which requires creative visualization as well as left-brained, mechanical expertise. His audiovisual endeavors grew rapidly into the event production company that would become Eagle AVL.

From its original base in Oklahoma City, the company expanded to locations in Lubbock, Austin, and Fort Worth. About ten years ago, Fort Worth was chosen as the company’s new main distribution hub – and business has continued growing ever since. Miller explains why Fort Worth is the best place to be:

“Originally, we were geared toward moving our hub to Dallas, but we quickly saw that Fort Worth was the right choice. Logistically there might have been better places, but moving here was the right decision. It’s worked out very,

very well. I tell people this all the time: People from Dallas aren’t from Dallas. People from Fort Worth are from Fort Worth.

“Granted, I’m not native to this area – but there’s not a lot of distance between the Red River where I’m from and Fort Worth. It’s the same people, the people I like communicating with. They do business the right way. That’s not knocking Dallas; Fort Worth just feels more comfortable to me.

“When we moved our company recently, I was very adamant about maintaining our Fort Worth address. We’re a Fort Worth company, and we’re going to stay in Fort Worth.”

Eagle AVL handles over 2,000 events each year across North America, including music concerts, festivals, rodeos, weddings, corporate conferences, charity functions, tours, and all kinds of private parties. Miller explains how Eagle AVL simplifies event planning for their clients:

“Clients love us because we make everything so easy. Eagle AVL is truly a one-stop shop; we put everything together from start to finish. We have so many clients that just send us an email. That’s it. From there, we handle all the details. Events have so many moving parts, and our clients trust us to make all of them work together. We take complete ownership of every project, and we work with great local partners like Stage Works and Encore.

“We do it all, from giant LED walls and 3-D

projections to custom-designed stages built from the ground up. We handle all sizes of events and own one of the largest inventories of audiovisual equipment in the country. Our experienced designers and production specialists work together fluidly as a team to bring it all together. We have really good people and a good team behind the scenes.”

Chances are, you’ve already seen Eagle AVL’s stages, heard their sound, and been dazzled by their visuals. Recent productions include Chicago at Bass Hall and the Cattle Baron’s Ball. They’ve worked with an impressive list of A-listers, including Keith Urban, Lady Gaga, Jane’s Addiction, Willie Nelson, Bon Jovi, Brad Paisley, Toby Keith, Judas Priest, Blake Shelton, and the Eagles.

Eagle AVL provides customized packages and turnkey solutions for event production, including audio, video, lighting, staging, and full production design.

Contact Danny Miller at (817) 654-9905 or info@eagleavl.com today to discover how easy planning a successful event can be with Eagle AVL.

Ed Cox

Bedford lawyer uses entrepreneurial thinking to transform his practice. Next up? He takes the helm of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization’s Fort Worth Chapter

Accelerator program for growing

entrepreneurs.

BY SCOTT NISHIMURA / PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALEX LEPE

Ed Cox thought he’d be a jazz musician, going so far as to enter the Berklee College of Music in Boston after high school. The realization set in there. “Despite practicing six to eight hours a day, there were a whole lot of other people around the world who were a lot better than I was,” Cox, who plays the piano, says. Cox, who grew up in Arlington, transferred back home to the University of North Texas.

While in school, he got a job serving legal papers. That led to starting his own process firm before he graduated college. The relationships he built led to law school, which led to the formation of his own firm, which specializes in construction. Cox has grown his practice significantly in the two years since he joined the Entrepreneurs’ Organization’s Fort Worth Accelerator program for entrepreneurs who don’t yet have the required $1 million in annual sales for EO membership. Cox earned EO membership a year ago. And this year, he’s agreed to take over leadership of the Accelerator.

Working in College I needed to put myself through college. I got a job serving citations and subpoenas for a retired constable in Tarrant County. Then I started my own private process business. I ended up putting myself through school doing that. I had 20 law firms in the DFW area.

Why the Law? I had a government class that I just loved. Through the private process business, I met a lot of lawyers. They were fascinated by my stories of what would happen when I would go serve process papers. As I got to know more lawyers, I began to realize I could make a living doing this.

Sneaking Into an On-Campus Job Interview I was in the middle of [my law school] class. Because of my class rank, I wasn’t eligible for a lot of those interviews. I stuck my resume [in the folder] for one firm. (The recruiter was a UNT graduate.) He picked me for an interview solely because I was a North Texas graduate. He extended me an offer to work over the summer in Houston, then fulltime.

Next moves: Joining North Texas firm in construction law, then forming a firm with two other lawyers, then starting his own in April 2009.

We are working on developing our law practice and title company. I’m a licensed escrow officer in addition to being an attorney. We are 75 percent legal and 25 percent title. I’ve got six attorneys, including myself, and 11 employees.

Breaking Into EO I have been working with a life coach for several years. She encouraged me to check out EO. I joined the Accelerator two years ago. My business had been ebbing and flowing on the cusp of that million [dollars in sales required for EO membership].

The Accelerator Experience I was placed in an account-

ability group (with other Accelerator members).

The Accelerator uses the book “Scaling Up.” The program allowed me to get out of the day-to-day as a lawyer and think about the business. At the end of the first year, I qualified for EO and moved to six lawyers from three while in the program. And I still belong to my Accelerator accountability group.

Accelerator’s Success Since Inception in Fall 2014 We’ve had seven graduates, five of which have gone on to join EO. With the current participants, plus graduates plus people who have come/gone, we’ve had a total of 28

people participate in the program.

What He’s Learned From EO Here’s an example of something I would never have thought to do. Every day, we’d come into the office and start working. [My EO coach] suggested a daily huddle. We meet every day at 8:30. We meet standing up. Everybody shares our wins they’ve had in the last 24 hours, a personal goal for the day, a professional goal for the day, and any roadblocks they see getting in the way. What that daily huddle brought was a togetherness that had not existed before.

Judging By What’s Right

State District Judge Don Cosby grew up with little, but he learned an appreciation for the law early on and reached his dream of entering the judiciary.

BY JASON FORREST

Forrest Performance Group

Running Toward the Roar is about running toward the moments of fear in our lives. We all have moments of fear that define and change us. Just like a gazelle that runs from the male lion’s roar and into the waiting trap of the female lioness, running from fear hurts us. But

when you face fears and look at them as challenges to overcome, you escape the waiting lioness. Fort Worth’s own State District Judge Don Cosby says every day is a Running Toward the Roar moment. He stays grounded and ready for battle by following the law and the “Code of Judicial Conduct.” Cosby jokes that

with every decision he makes, only 50 percent of people will agree with him. In business, there are many difficult decisions that leaders will have to make,

What’s it take to win when you start from little? State District Judge Don Cosby can tell you. Please see Jason Forrest’s video interview at fwtx.com/fwinc/videos.

Judge Don Cosby.

Photo by Alex Lepe

usually on a daily basis. While there is no way to make the right decision every time, there is a process to make the best decision at that right moment.

1. Accept that sometimes the right answer isn’t cut and dry. There are no right answers. The decision must be based on the most current information at that time.

2. Commit to one path and take it without hesitation. Make decisions based on fact, like Cosby in the courtroom. Do not waver because the desired outcome will not be accomplished.

Growing up, Cosby did not have life easy, but he took his struggles and hardship and turned them into his story of success. Cosby’s father abandoned him, his brother and mother, leaving them with no money and no place to live.

His mother took a kitchen job at the Lena Pope Chapel Hill Academy, and Cosby and his brother attended Chapel Hill. Cosby enjoyed living at the Lena Pope home. There were lots of boys his age to make friends with. He said it was great having enough boys around to make up two baseball teams. Cosby and his brother received academic scholarships to Trinity Valley School.

Once the school year was underway, their workload became much larger than the previous school year. He recalled the homework being difficult, not only because it was challenging, but also because of the sheer amount of kids around all the time. It was not always easy finding a quiet spot to study. Cosby would seek solace in his mother’s room. The Lena Pope home adapted with Cosby and his brother as they grew.

The rules changed to allow them solitude for study times. Great company cultures do the same thing. They grow with the employees. It is important to do culture checks with your employees so you can make sure they have the knowledge, tools and resources needed to do their job to the best of their ability.

Cosby attributes the Lena Pope Home

to helping him stay positive in his youth during challenging times. Much of our life and belief system is programmed in our younger years, and positive influences can inspire success. Cosby was taken in by Bob Bolen, the future mayor of Fort Worth, and his wife Fran. The family was raising five children of their own but still invited Cosby into their home to help mentor and guide him in his youth. To this day, Cosby still quotes Bolen, “Leave it better than you found

it.” The Bolens mentored Cosby and taught him to be a good citizen. They taught him:

• In life, there are leaders and there are followers;

• It takes both to make the world go ’round;

• Leaders must inspire the followers; and

• The mark of a true leader is the ability to encourage and influence another person to succeed.

Cosby has always loved the law. At a

young age, he got to meet prominent judges in his city where he enjoyed seeing the many people who came in and out of the courtrooms. He formed an appreciation for the fairness and compassion a judge can have while holding a trial. And there was Cosby’s love of reading, a big part of a judge’s job. He was admitted into St. Mary’s University and passed the Texas State Bar in 1980. After graduating, he worked in the legal departments for Sunbelt Real Estate and at AMRESCO, but the time came where he decided to go after his dream.

He packed up his family and moved back to Fort Worth. Two years after moving, Cosby decided to put his law degree into practice by running for state district judge, but becoming one did not come easy. He did not win his first election but did continue to serve in the district, and when another judge passed, he was ushered into office.

Cosby’s most memorable Running Toward the Roar moment was in the case of a trial where he was friends with both defense and prosecuting attorneys. It was a highstakes, multimillion-dollar case that Cosby admitted was one that ended up where the decision he made severed the friendships. His job as a judge came first.

If anybody asks Cosby if he ever has thought about changing careers, he will say no. His wife and children encourage him to stay the course and continue to pursue his passion. When asked what is next, Cosby wants to teach. He says Bob Bolen inspired him to give back. His success formula he would give to readers is made up of commitment, focus, perseverance, strength, faith and family.

Jason Forrest is CEO of Forrest Performance Group, a global leader and designer of sales, management, and corporate training programs. Jason is a regular contributor to FW Inc.

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Keeping Fort Worth Moving

Cowtown continues to augment its transportation infrastructure, moving people and goods by land, air and rail.

BY BRANDOM GENGELBACH Executive Vice President of Economic Development Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce

Throughout my career, I’ve had the opportunity to sit on both sides of the table when discussing site selection. Companies seeking relocation and expansion opportunities look at several factors, but having an efficient transportation infrastructure remains one of the most important qualities. It was apparent to me from my first visit that Fort Worth has established a sophisticated transportation hub that keeps people and goods moving by land, air and rail, making our city an extremely attractive destination for economic opportunities.

One of our biggest assets is worldwide connectivity through Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, the fourth busiest airport in the world. This airport facilitates business travel and tourism by offering nonstop flights to 210 global destinations and 162 domestic destinations. DFW is also a major regional economic generator, handling 60 percent of the cargo shipped in Texas and creating $14.3 billion in revenue for North Texas.

Fort Worth’s economy is further enhanced by the presence of three additional airports. Fort Worth Alliance

Airport is the world’s first industrial airport and the centerpiece of the Alliance Global Logistics Hub. In 2015, Alliance Airport reported 263,328,944 pounds of cargo enplaning and deplaning, and aircraft operations – takeoffs and landings - grew to 117,499.

Air services are also offered by Fort Worth Meacham International Airport and Spinks Airport, with full-service fixed base operators, flight schools and aviation maintenance facilities for corporate and private jets.

An expansive railway network also makes Fort Worth attractive to logistics and manufacturing companies. BNSF Railway, which is headquartered in Fort Worth, has a $100 million, state-of-theart intermodal hub at the Alliance Global Logistics Hub. Union Pacific also has a significant presence with one of the largest freight classification facilities in the nation.

several roadway enhancement projects to ensure that accessibility to any Fort Worth location in 30 minutes is a well-planned reality. A good example is Chisholm Trail Parkway, a 28-mile toll road providing a continuous route from downtown Fort Worth to Cleburne.

One of the region’s most extensive roadway projects is the North Tarrant Express, which involves the reconstruction of existing main lanes, modernization of ramps and frontage roads and the addition of two toll express lanes in each direction along a 10-mile stretch of Interstate 35 West from downtown to U.S. Route 287.

Railway traffic through Fort Worth is facilitated by Tower 55, one of the nation’s busiest railroad intersections. More than 100 trains transport goods through Tower 55 daily.

Railway traffic through Fort Worth is facilitated by Tower 55, one of the nation’s busiest railroad intersections. More than 100 trains transport goods through Tower 55 daily.

Fort Worth commuters also benefit from the city’s rail system. The Trinity Railway Express connects more than 180,000 monthly riders to Dallas, and upon completion in 2018, TEX Rail will connect Fort Worth riders to DFW Airport. TEX Rail is the Tarrant County segment of the proposed Cotton Belt Rail Line, a 67.7-mile commuter rail line that will connect riders in Tarrant, Dallas, Collin and Rockwall counties.

Major interstates such as Interstate 20, Interstate 30 and Interstate 35 West link Fort Worth with other parts of the nation, as well as with Mexico and Canada. However, rapid growth has necessitated

The $200 million northern segment, north of Interstate 820, was completed in 2016, and the $1.6 billion southern segment, located south of Interstate 820, will be completed in 2018. A privately funded extension from U.S. Route 287 to Texas State Highway 114 and Texas Motor Speedway is also planned.

Meanwhile, to relieve congestion and assist commuters, the Fort Worth Transportation Authority has implemented its 2016 Transit Master Plan, which focuses on serving more people in more places. Recently, 10 bus routes have been added in the north and northwest, including Route 64, known as the North Texas Xpress, which serves Alliance and Denton.

Brandom Gengelbach is executive vice president of economic development for the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce. He writes this column for each issue of FW Inc.

Fort Worth’s Commercial Real Estate Leaders

Natalie Ayala Moore, Nina Petty and Michael Bennett are honored in the 2017 Real Estate Council of Greater Fort Worth awards.

BY KAREN VERMAIRE FOX

What comes to mind when you think of recognition –it’s all that talk about that “other generation” wanting ribbons for showing up, isn’t it? But be honest, there is something to being honored for outstanding achievement that makes every individual work just a bit harder. The members of the commercial real estate community are no different.

Annually, the Real Estate Council holds a dinner for its members to recognize the outstanding work of those involved in commercial real estate. There are two main awards presented during dinner – recognition to the Outstanding Young Leader and the presentation of the Susan A. Halsey Founder’s Award. And every other year, the outgoing chair is recognized and honored as well.

This year, Natalie Ayala Moore is the recipient of the 2017 Outstanding Young Leader. Moore works for the City of Fort Worth Economic Development Department as Business Development Coordinator. She began her career with CBRE and later worked as an analyst for Integra Realty Resources. Natalie, who earned her undergraduate degree at Texas A&M and MBA in corporate finance at TCU, is married to Landon and has a 3-year-old daughter, Olivia.

The Susan A. Halsey Founder’s Award, the Council’s most prestigious award and given to a person who exemplifies the mission of the organization, went this year to Nina Petty, vice chancellor of real estate for Tarrant County College. Throughout her real estate career, Petty has touched many facets of development. She started her career as a broker for CB Richard Ellis and moved to the Staubach Group. From there she was hired by RadioShack to help develop the corporate headquarters. This campus was later sold to Tarrant County College. Her department, consisting of more than 250 employees, is responsible for capital improvement projects, renovation, repair and maintenance of all property owned or leased by Tarrant County College. There are not many people in commercial real estate in Fort Worth who have not been touched by the work of Nina Petty. She is forever challenging the

industry to make room for more women, people of diverse backgrounds and young people.

When she finished her chairmanship of the Real Estate Council, the annual meeting had not yet been created where the organization recognized and honored the work of past chairs, so she was quietly honored at a board meeting and given a necklace with a key on it. She wears this necklace daily. That key is a symbol of the doors she has opened for so many in the community.

There are not many people in commercial real estate in Fort Worth who have not been touched by the work of Nina Petty. She is forever challenging the industry to make room for more women and people of diverse backgrounds.

The Council at this year’s dinner also paid tribute to the leadership of past chair Michael Bennett as well. Bennett has served as the past chair for the last two years while running Bennett Benner Partners, a Fort Worth architecture and design firm. Michael transitions leadership to Tom Galbreath with Dunaway Associates. Bennett’s leadership will be commemorated with a contribution to one of his favorite organizations in Fort Worth, the Fort Worth Symphony.

Real Estate Council of Greater Fort Worth

Karen Vermaire Fox writes this column for the Real Estate Council of Greater Fort Worth, a regular contributor to FW Inc.

Front-View Mirror

CFOs can help shape a company’s future with reliable financial forecasting that illuminates the road ahead.

BY THE FORT WORTH CPAs

Chief financial officers are making history, not just recording it. Philip Campbell is a consultant, author, CPA, and senior vice president of planning at AMCON Distributing Co., and he spoke to about 100 CFOs and controllers in March at the Fort Worth CPAs’ Next/Prepare Conference.

What’s the most common financial mistake made by entrepreneurs in fast-growing companies? The most common mistake is failing to think through and fully understand the cash flow implications of growth. Many entrepreneurs are successful in growing their business, sometimes growing rapidly, only to grow themselves right into a cash crisis. As Verne Harnish, author of “Scaling Up,” says, “Growth sucks cash—the first law of entrepreneurial gravity.” Most entrepreneurs think that if they can grow, then they will be profitable. And if they are profitable, they will have plenty of cash. They don’t fully understand that growth, especially rapid growth, is almost always a net user of cash because of the pressure it puts on working capital.

How does forecasting help correct that problem? A reliable financial forecast solves this problem by providing a clear view through the financial windshield of the business. It helps an entrepreneur see the obstacles that lie ahead. A reliable financial forecast makes it clear for the CEO what the cash implications of growth are so they can plan accordingly.

Begin by creating a forecast of your financial statements for the next three months. But don’t share it with anyone – yet.

What does forecasting have to do with your idea that CFOs can make history? The traditional role of the CFO is to provide accurate and timely financial statements to management. But historical financial statements show us what happened in the past. They show us the financial results of business decisions made months ago. A reliable financial forecast shows management what’s about to happen. That way, an entrepreneur or CEO can make changes to their strategies and tactics in order to “change the future.”

What makes for a reliable financial forecast? The key to creating a reliable financial forecast is to ensure that it is an unbiased, reality-based estimate of what is likely to happen (from a financial perspective). It should be a fully modeled set of forward-looking financial statements (income statement, balance sheet and statement of cash flows). The forecast should not be a target or a goal or a budget. And the essence of the forecast should be communicated to the CEO or the board in a two-minute summary.

How does a CFO run the forecasting process? The key to creating a reliable financial forecast is to ensure it is a top-down process (not bottom-up) that is influenced

by actual results and trends. And the forecast should become a part of the monthly reporting process.

What’s the biggest stumbling block to preparing and delivering forecasts? The biggest stumbling block is to recognize that the goal of financial forecasting is decision-making, not precision. As CFOs, we are hardwired to make sure our numbers are precise and accurate. In creating historical financial statements, precision is your friend. But when creating a reliable forecast for decision-making, precision is your enemy. Financial forecasting is about providing insight into what’s about to happen. It’s about helping management make better business decisions and drive growth, profitability, and cash flow higher each year.

How can a company get started with forecasting to create better decisions? The key to getting started is to start “for your eyes only.” Begin by creating a forecast of your financial statements for the next three months. But don’t share it with anyone – yet. After running the forecast process for three months, you will become more confident and knowledgeable about the benefits of forecasting and how best to create and present the results. You will learn firsthand where the landmines are. You will develop a better sense of the kinds of monthly and strategic decisions that the forecast can help you answer and influence. Get help from an experienced CFO or CPA if you are not comfortable creating the forecast yourself.

Philip Campbell is the author of “A Quick Start Guide to Financial Forecasting” and “Never Run Out of Cash”. He’s writing this column for the Fort Worth CPAs, a regular contributor to FW Inc. Reach him at pcampbell@financialrhythm.com

SAFEs: Right for You?

Convertible equity’s getting a lot of buzz in the startup investment community, compared to debt.

BY DOUGLAS W. CLAYTON Corporate and securities partner Cantey Hangar LLP

What the heck is a SAFE startup investment, and is it right for you?

SAFE stands for Simple Agreement for Future Equity. The investment approach and acronym were developed by Y Combinator, a Silicon Valley startup accelerator and seed investor. SAFEs have been getting quite a bit of buzz in the startup community.

A SAFE is a convertible equity instrument used by startup companies. The investor invests cash today in exchange for the company’s promise to issue equity in the future.

What type of equity and on what terms? Exactly. SAFEs are convertible into the next round of equity issued by the company, typically a Series A preferred stock financing round. SAFEs typically convert at a price discount to the Series A round and/or with a valuation cap applicable to the Series A round. A lower conversion price is more favorable for the investor because the note converts into more shares.

vision, but because the company is earlystage, pre-revenue, there are no appropriate valuation metrics.

The company needs equity financing sooner rather than later, but how do you price the equity at such an early stage? Whatever valuation you pick is likely to be unfair to the founders or the investors. And what other equity terms will apply?

When you start funding a startup, a lot of questions arise quickly. Does it make sense to spend a startup’s limited time and money negotiating valuation and other deal terms at such an early stage?

The SAFE investment instrument allows you to kick these sorts of issues down the road to a more appropriate stage of the startup’s life cycle: when the startup engages in a true Series A financing round led by more sophisticated investors.

SAFEs are in many ways similar to convertible notes, which have long been a tool used by early-stage

startup investors.

When things go as planned, SAFE investors can piggyback off the added time, information and expertise of the Series A investors to hopefully achieve more equitable deal terms.

If SAFEs sound familiar, it’s because SAFEs are in many ways similar to convertible notes, which have long been a tool used by early-stage startup investors. SAFEs, like convertible notes, involve a cash investment today with an expectation of conversion in an equity security in the future.

SAFEs have no maturity dates and no potential solvency issues for the startups, (3) SAFEs have fewer terms to negotiate and are less expensive to implement (a SAFE is typically only about five pages long), and (4) SAFEs are more reflective of economic reality: investors in convertible notes rarely really intend to be a lender to the company. The convertible note is just a placeholder until conversion, typically when the Series A terms are known.

There is much positive to be said for SAFEs as a quick-and-dirty mechanism to bridge a startup to a more formal round of equity financing. From the company’s perspective, there is much to love about SAFEs.

From the investor’s perspective, SAFE is a misnomer. The instrument isn’t “safe,” or at least not as safe as a convertible note or a priced equity financing round.

If the startup never issues its next round of equity, the SAFE exists in investment purgatory as neither an equity investment nor a loan. SAFEs typically provide that SAFE investors get a liquidation preference or get converted into equity upon a sale or liquidation of the company. But that could be many years down the road, or never.

Of course, no startup equity investment is truly safe. If the company fails spectacularly, a convertible note holder is likely to be every bit as wiped out as a SAFE holder. Still, there are advantages to an investor having the status and rights of a lender or a true equity holder.

While the SAFE investment vehicle is not for everyone, it is certainly a worthy addition to a startup’s financing toolbox.

Here’s how it works. Say you have a startup company that has a great idea but urgently needs funding. Friends and family or angel investors have bought into your

Advocates for SAFE, such as Y Combinator, argue that SAFEs are superior to convertible notes because, among other things, (1) SAFEs accrue no interest, (2)

Douglas Clayton is a corporate and securities partner with Cantey Hanger LLP, where he serves as vice chairman of the Business Transactions Practice Group.

CONNECTING

INTEGRITYCREATIVITY VISION

2018 CALL FOR NOMINATIONS

We are looking for those entrepreneurs whose vision, creativity and integrity have made Fort Worth the premier place to do business. FW Inc.’s Entrepreneur of Excellence Awards showcases and honors the contributions of exceptional entrepreneurs in the area. This unique EOE connection has become the voice for the entrepreneurial community in Fort Worth.

This year there will be EOE awards in 13 categories. Finalists from each category will be featured in a future issue of FW Inc.

Anyone can nominate an exceptional entrepreneur – you can even nominate yourself. Nominations for the 2018 EOE Awards open June 5 and run through Sept. 22. For more details on the award and to nominate an outstanding entrepreneur today, go to fwtx.com/fwinc/eoe.

Presenting Sponsor Whitley Penn

Supporting Sponsors Frank Kent Cadillac Origin Bank

Why Home Care Will Surge Under Trump

Health care continues to become more outpatient-focused, and President Donald Trump’s new health secretary, Tom Price, pledged to reduce regulations.

BY BRADLEY SMITH Managing Director Vertess Advisors

It’s no secret that the home care industry has been in a downward spiral for the past decade, primarily due to audits and declining reimbursements. The number of providers has decreased, with larger and larger companies that can take advantage of economies of scale amassing more market share. Despite these concerns, demand has continued to rise as older citizens and people with disabilities want care in their own homes.

Home care companies, including home health and hospice agencies, are putting a lot of faith in President Donald Trump’s plans to make changes to Obamacare, especially Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. Price has a strong history of championing health care reform and has pledged to reduce the regulatory red tape that bedevils many home care companies.

Here are the five most significant reasons why we will see expansion in the home care industry during the Trump administration:

1. Price will promote home care. Previous HHS secretaries have had little to no communication with providers, making usually negative assumptions about the provider community. Coming from the

The U.S. has large Medicare/Medicaid populations with limited personal funds, and home care is often the least expensive way to deliver effective services and equipment.

provider side, Price has a history of working with home care agencies because of his belief that providers have an extremely valuable role in the health care continuum.

2. Trump will expand the financial commitment to home care. The U.S. has large Medicare/Medicaid beneficiary populations with limited personal funds for necessary medical services, and home care is often the least expensive way to deliver effective services and equipment. Numerous studies have concluded that for every $1 spent on home care, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services saves $30 or more in acute care cost. Additionally, patient outcomes in the home are generally better than in an acute care setting. Given the focus on costcutting and block grants, we can expect even more financial support for these services.

3. Changes in Obamacare will be incremental. Despite all the harsh

rhetoric, I expect the framework for Obama’s Affordable Care Act to stay largely in place. Residents of many states have made their concerns known in several raucous town hall meetings, and concerns about the ACA have been prominent. Complete “repeal-and-replace” is more of a campaign slogan than what people desire. Home care options were promoted by Obamacare and are likely to continue to have favored status.

4. The health care continuum will become more outpatient-focused. The evolution of health care away from hospital-centric care toward outpatient services will accelerate because of cost-effectiveness and good outcomes, including lower infection rates. Home care has been demonstrated to be a strong partner in supporting a positive patient social environment and reducing the likelihood of hospital admissions.

5. Home care merger and acquisitions activity will increase. As a result of public policy shifts, cost controls and other changes, providers will need to further scale and consolidate to insulate themselves from risk. Additionally, there will be another generation of tech-savvy entrepreneurs that will find new opportunities in startups, as well as acquiring existing providers as they build a more comprehensive continuum of services.

Bradley Smith is managing director of Vertess Advisors, LLC, a national mergers and acquisitions advisory firm. This is a guest column. bsmith@ vertess.com

“When you are going through hell, keep going!”

Seven Ways to Pump Up Tenacity and Courage in Our Company – and Ourselves

BY TONY FORD Success Fort Worth

These words of courageous commitment are attributed to Winston Churchill. It was his iron will that motivated Great Britain to stand against the overwhelming threat of Nazi Germany in the early days of World War II.

Churchill understood that while we cannot always choose the circumstances of our struggles, we can choose the level of tenacity with which we confront them. If not for his leadership at this critical time in history, the lives of every person living today would have been dramati-

cally and negatively altered.

So what about us?

As leaders, we must constantly look for future opportunities while confronting present obstacles. In these circumstances, success often hinges on whether we are willing to push on, even though much of what we see around us looks bleak. How can we pump up our tenacity?

1. Commit to commitment: No one enjoys following a wishy-washy leader. As business owners, executives and managers, we are expected to be committed to a well-thoughtout plan of action and be competent to help others execute their parts. As often happens, even when our plans prove inadequate, our commitment to our people and their commitment to our customers often wins the day.

2. Consider all criticisms: In 1910, President Theodore Roosevelt gave a famous speech at the Sorbonne in Paris titled “The Man in the Arena.” He started by saying, “It’s not the critic who counts.” And while I agree that in the context of choosing fight-overflight, this is a superior strategy, critics can often shine a valuable light on our shortcomings and opportunities.

3. Learn from learners: It turns out that there are a lot of really smart people in the world. It’s also true that they need friends just like we do. So,

when given a chance to invest time in new relationships, why not upgrade to a smarter group of friends? Actively seeking out people who are more experienced and educated than we are is the mark of a serious leader.

4. Plan for pain: Many of us know veterans who have served in the Middle East, a theater of war often referred to as “The Sandbox.” Why? Because the sand is everywhere and in everything, and there is no escaping it. It is so pervasive that soldiers have an expression for how to cope with it and the war itself. They simply tell new arrivals to the battlefield to “embrace the suck.” To lead a group of employees through difficult situations filled with uncertainty, conflict and drama (the sand of business growth), planning for pain is not optional. As leaders, we cannot expect others to push through hardships if we have not already worked out escape scenarios and embraced the suck. As the Navy SEALs say, “You don’t have to like it; you just have to do it!”

5. Encourage the encouragers: Every company has certain employees, vendors and customers who are just naturally encouraging people. But in the grind of everyday business, even these folks get discouraged. Understanding that someday, these people may make the difference between success and failure is critical. Right now, today, before the really tough times come, make every effort to support these individuals. Figure out each person’s love language, and use it to show how much you care about them. It may turn out that these are the very folks who will keep you from sinking into depression when things get rough.

6. Mind your mentors: One of the great myths surrounding entrepreneurship is that, as business owners, we are not accountable to anyone. I call it a myth, because anyone who has owned their own company for more than week understands we are ac-

countable to an entire army, including employees, vendors, customers, government regulators, and banks. What is not a myth is that placing ourselves into an accountability relationship with a great mentor is a solid recipe for long-term success. That said, while it is the mentor’s job to provide wisdom and understanding gained through years of real-world experience, it is our job to honor his or her investment in us by using it to better lead out in our company and our community.

7.Testify to tenacity: For whatever reason, many leaders like to tell

stories that feature themselves as the hero. But when it comes to inspiring a tenacious spirit in the lives of our employees, they seem to prefer stories about how people in their circumstances adapted to difficult changes and achieved success. Learning to share these kinds of testimonies of tenacity knits the hearts of our people together in a way that offers them the opportunity to become the heroes themselves one day. The next time someone in your company goes over and above to help a co-worker, customer or vendor, take the time to find out the details of that situation. Then, in an appropriate setting, re-

count the story with that employee as the star. It won’t take others long to find ways in which they can become the star of the next story.

Tony Ford is the president of Success Fort Worth and is an award-winning entrepreneur with a history of starting industry-leading companies He now coaches business owners, executives and leadership teams to accelerate growth or effectively sell their companies. He's also program director of the 2017 FW Inc. Entrepreneur of Excellence awards program. Tony writes this column for each issue of FW Inc. Contact him at tford@tonyford.com

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Startups: Where to Start

A Q&A with Michael Sherrod, TCU’s serial entrepreneur in residence, about how the school steers its young entrepreneurs today.

BY SCOTT NISHIMURA

Abig piece of FW Inc.’s mission is about entrepreneurs. With this issue and going forward, we’re starting a column about startups. Michael Sherrod, serial entrepreneur, the William M. Dickey Entrepreneur in Residence at TCU’s Neeley School of Business, and director of the TCU/Coleman Entrepreneurship Fellows Program, sat down for a Q&A on everything from how Neeley steers its budding entrepreneurs to where he’d like to be if he were just coming out of business school today.

On one definition of entrepreneurship: “Leveraging opportunity without

regard to resources control.” It doesn’t matter what your work context is. You can be entrepreneurial.

What kinds of ideas bubble up from Neeley’s entrepreneurs? We see a lot of products for hunters. It can be a bucket with pockets, an Airbnb for hunters, crossbow support. There’s a big difference between a great idea and a great business opportunity. It’s really difficult to make a simple product into a sustainable business.

On one student team’s idea to expand into a crowded field: I thought it was a decent idea. Perhaps enter the

fray as someone who managed all these players. That got their attention.

Differentiating your startup: Go out and talk to your customers. It’s the one thing that can differentiate your company. It’s the cheapest and most reliable way to start addressing a business opportunity. Few people do it. Even in Silicon Valley, they don’t do it. They’re so sure they can make it. Information and data are your best friend, especially when you’re starting your company up.

On a class he taught where students had to divide into teams and launch a money-making business within one semester: All four made it. I had a window-washing business that made an $8,000 profit, an ad products company that made a $3,000 profit, and a company that sold caps and T-shirts with QR codes in hidden places that sent you to customers leaving inspirational videos. They made $600 in the last hour selling merchandise to the rest of the class. And I had a team that wrote a book about millennials. They struggled trying to publish a book, but they sold 2,000 copies before the semester was out at Amazon and Lulu. I think $2.99 per copy.

How the students got their content for the book: They got all their friends at other schools to give them quotes about how millennials are viewed. The hard part was how to write it.

Where he wouldn’t mind being if he were coming out of business school today: There are so many interesting places to start companies. India, Singapore.

No, what fields? Content provided for virtual reality and augmented reality. The creation of media is going to be critical. That requires a lot of artisans. You could really do well.

Employee Appraisals: Stop the Hate

Performance appraisals, if crafted well, can be useful tools tied to promotions, bonuses and raises.

BY STEVIE DAWN Chief Leadership Officer

Aperformance appraisal is something most of us hate. Often it is used to placate a boss or to meet a company requirement, but what does it really mean? What does it really get us? Why do we go through the pain every year or for some, twice a year?

I’ve had different experiences with performance appraisals in corporate America. I’ve had times where it was a good tool and great discussion, and it really helped me to see how my boss saw my work. There were other times where I was encouraged to rate myself as “average” on everything, so we didn’t have to comment or supply additional documentation.

No matter where you stand on performance appraisals, they are not going away. They can be very useful tools. Some of my clients have found ways to implement performance appraisals in a way that is positive and encouraging. A few have found ways to tie performance appraisals to promotions, bonuses and raises.

Here are the three things you might think about when crafting an effective appraisal.

Voices. You should have multiple voices in the appraisal. Get a variety of viewpoints. Most of us don’t work in a two-person office. We work in a large organization. There are multiple people we interact with daily. For the performance appraisal to accurately review the performance of an employee, it has to be looked at from many sides. Think about conducting a 360 review beyond subordinates and supervisors. Consider having colleagues and peers weigh in on

performance. When we take all the voices into consideration, we have an opportunity for a more comprehensive view of how an employee has performed the last year.

judge them based on competency, not just on a narrative or an opinion. Though these are best practices, the key is to focus on the usage of the appraisal. Be honest. If the appraisal is just going in a file never to be seen again, then make it easy. Ask simple questions. Give it a rate scale and that’s enough. If you are going to use the appraisal to discuss employee performance, however, you might want to have deeper questions with more voices.

You should have multiple voices in the appraisal. Most of us don’t work in a two-person office. We work in a large organization.

Timing. Doing performance appraisals once a year at the end of the year can be the most inappropriate time. During the holiday season, employees may not be at their best. Some people are dealing with family drama or their thoughts are on an upcoming vacation. Perhaps you do appraisals at the end of your fiscal year when everyone is struggling with getting a budget together. Is that really when your employees have the most time? Is that when you have the most time for an effective appraisal? The best time is during a down cycle of your year. I realize most of you are busy 24/7/365, but there is a season when you have a slowdown. So, do it every six months, and try to plan your appraisals based on your company’s down times so people can give thought and be reflective in what they provide during the appraisal process.

Questions. What questions are you going to ask? What questions do you need to have answers? Some best practices will suggest that fewer questions are better. Opt for open-ended questions so employees can provide a narrative feedback. Another strategy is focusing on competencies and skills rather than vague questions. You

I often suggest to clients an appraisal that incorporates multiple voices and rates employees and managers in terms of alignment with organizational values, leadership skills, work-based competencies and development goals. I have found that these four areas will give you the most value in your appraisal.

Appraisals don’t have to be painful, and they don’t have to be useless. Performance appraisals are something that can be an effective tool for employee engagement and employee development.

Employees want feedback. They want to know how they’re doing, and they want it more than once a year. They want to be able to have an open, honest conversation about their work, about how it is going and where they need to improve. They also want to have a voice to tell you, the boss, how you can improve, how you are performing. When we craft effective appraisals, they can be one of the most effective tools in the human resource management toolbox.

Dr. Stevie Dawn is chief leadership officer for Stevie Dawn Inspires, a Fort Worth corporate training company. This is a guest column. stevie@ steviedawninspires.com

Stevie Dawn Inspires

Gloria Starling

From sharing breakfast with her son to Pilates before work, chairing nonprofit events, and running The Capital Grille, Gloria Starling, the Fort Worth restaurant’s managing partner, packs in a full day.

5:30 a.m. I wake up and watch my favorite news anchor, the fabulous Deborah Ferguson, and I get

breakfast ready for my Gabriel.

6 a.m. I wake him up for school, and we eat breakfast together

a couple of hours to plan and help organize three of the projects I am currently chairing: The 38th Annual Barrett Havran Memorial Big Taste of Fort Worth hosted by Big Brothers Big Sisters, The Ronald McDonald’s Road House, and the 44th Annual American Salute Gala for the Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber.

10 a.m. The deliveries start coming in, including wine, food, liquor, etc. I get the floor plan ready for the upcoming shift, drink a protein shake, and it is full speed from then on.

Pizza, tacos from Salsa Limón or even tamales from Reata.

2 p.m. I have planned meetings with one of my managers, chef or a team member. It is amazing what you can learn when you take the time to get to know the people you work with and have them share ideas and work together on their development.

every day. This is my commitment to him.

7 a.m. I drive my son to school, and we listen to some interesting music he has gotten into lately. After lots of kisses, he gets dropped off at his school.

7:30 a.m. I run for about 30 minutes before my Pilates class at the Fort Worth Club. On the drive, I call the little sis to see how she is doing.

9 a.m. I head into The Capital Grille. I take

11 a.m. We have pre-shift with the entire team and go over the plan for the day. We review the dish of the day, focus of the week, and celebrate great performances. One of my favorite things that I get to do every day begins here when I get the opportunity to visit with our guests in the dining room. One of the greatest perks is that you never know who we are going to get to serve that day. After doing quality control for our food and enjoying a shift with the team, we begin thinking about food.

1-1:30 p.m. We start thinking about what we are going to eat that day. The team can get pretty creative when it comes to making a family meal, but once in a while, we’ll make a call and get some pizza from Mama’s

3:20 p.m. I always call my Gabriel when he gets picked up from school so he can tell me about his day. We talk about his plan for the rest of the afternoon and what he will work on until I get home.

4:30 p.m. Committee meeting with Downtown Fort Worth Inc.

6 p.m. I go back to the restaurant for quality control, line check, pre-shift, and work the dining room. Sarah or Bob eventually take over the shift.

8 p.m. I finish homework with my son, and we have a light dinner. We read some of his favorite books and get ready for bed.

9 p.m. I put my Gabriel to bed and within 5-10 minutes, he is in dreamland. I reply to some emails and plan my schedule for the next day.

11 p.m. I get ready for bed and take a little time to say a prayer and be thankful for all my blessings.